The apex court also said no coercive steps, including the arrest of the Kolkata Police chief, will take place during the course of investigation.
Can we ask the judges a simple question: You write judgments all the time to protect the judiciary from others. Will you write one on how to save the judiciary from the judges, too, asks Shekhar Gupta.
Indrani dressed in a short purple kurta and leggings, with a bandhini green-purple chunni, sindhoor glowing in her mang, was receiving a drubbing from her lawyers for the facts she had revealed before the court on Tuesday while arguing the rejoinder to her bail application. She was insisting: "But he asked me for a motive!"
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed former Punjab and Haryana high court judge Nirmal Yadav's plea for stay on proceedings of trial court, which is set to frame charges against her in cash-at-judge's door scam, and pulled her up for adopting delaying tactics.
As the weeks go by in this trial, it has emerged that Shyamvar Rai is that rare species of driver whose knowledge of distances, directions and routes surprisingly would not even fill the back of a postage stamp.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday released its first list of 22 candidates fielding former ministers Somnath Bharti, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Satyendra Jain and Girish Soni in the Delhi Assembly elections, the dates of which are yet to be announced.
The HC refused to stay the Centre's notification disqualifying the 20 MLAs.
Her elfin face could be seen and once more after many days the victim of this murder had a face and a presence.
'I kept photographs of everyone. Because I was working for them.' 'Madam, Saab...' Shyamvar Rai, the approver in the case, said in a tone that tried to suggest that that would be a routine practice for a driver.
A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar quashed the Centre's notification disqualifying the AAP MLAs, saying the the EC's recommendation against the legislators was "bad in law" and "vitiated".
The question being silently telegraphed around the court room was: When did this happen? Wasn't this trial about Indrani murdering her daughter to prevent her from marrying Rahul Mukerjea, her husband Peter Mukerjea's son from his first marriage?
Not Mekhail. Not Rahul. Not anyone. 'Wouldn't someone have asked?' Indrani asked.
After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again. Four or five months later she met her death. Mekhail referred to their last meeting without overt emotion, clear-eyed.
Each time they held the leafy bedsheet over the window for a few seconds, a clearer but very grey visage of Indrani came into view. In the barely discernible image, Indrani seemed to look tired and downbeat. But then the bedsheet would be taken away and Indrani would disappear into the darkness once more.
Indrani and Peter Mukerjea seemed more at ease on Wednesday, maybe with the INX Media interrogation over temporarily, chatting cheerfully and easily amongst themselves, and with former husband Sanjeev Khanna, at the back of the courtroom, in the accused enclosure.
As the dust finally settles on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 and Bharatiya Janata Party along with its NDA allies emerges as the clear winner, here is a list of who won in each of the 7 phases of elections.
One always ponders over why the witnesses should not have poor memory when answering cross examination questions or recounting events that occurred six years ago. Too many witnesses seemed to have drunk some Harry Potter-esque Philosopher's Stone magic elixir that has Botoxed their fading memory to make it as good as new again.
Indrani is clearly in charge in her little corner. She is speaking rapidly to a not-very-tall, pot-bellied, balding man, whom she repeatedly, decisively, asks, "Have you understood?" The tone is that of a boss talking to an employee. The words "cheque" and "two lakhs" float by.
Delhi and neighbouring Noida in Uttar Pradesh, too, are studying Gurgaon's no-car Tuesday model.
One couldn't help feeling a certain melancholy viewing these now vagrant documents and photographs that would never be rightfully cherished. The pictures spoke to you. They offered slices of extinguished lives. They breathed sadness too, for what could have been and will never be. The sweet promises that Life made and insolently, arrogantly never kept.
Peter said he needed a broom to sweep his cell because, he joked, there are no vacuum cleaners in jail.
He is, at the closing of 2018, a man quite different from the Peter Mukerjea who entered judicial custody three-and-a-half years ago. He is a man not yet convicted of a crime, but already suffering for it, like the hundreds that enter these courts every day and the thousands Peter shares jail space with in a central Mumbai prison.
All international passengers will henceforth be screened at airports, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said at a press conference. Earlier, travellers from only 12 countries were screened at airports for the disease that has claimed over 3,000 lives and infected more than 90,000 worldwide.
Peter's lawyer paints Indrani as a master manipulator, looking to waste the court's time and use the media to manipulate public perception about his client. 'She is "trying to exonerate herself," the lawyer argues, and accuses Indrani of "trying to lay a trap" for Peter "and attempting to malign his reputation"...'
Why do the biggest, most talented and successful film-makers of India suck up to the establishment so breathlessly, asks Shekhar Gupta.
'I have strong reasons to believe that Accused number 4 (A4) Pratim Mukerjea with the assistance of other persons, including Accused no 3 (A3) turned approver Shyamwar Pinturam Rai may have conspired and abducted my daughter Sheena in 2012 and made her untraceable and subsequently destroyed evidence.'
Realty sector is facing a huge slowdown for last 3-4 years, leading to a significant delays in possession of flats to customers.
It would seem that Indrani's application was not something prepared or maybe even sanctioned by her lawyers and was a courtroom enterprise she had embarked on by herself, perhaps not realising it distracted from the main business of the trial and didn't help her cause.
'I ask for bail in the name of justice.' 'Give me a chance to stay alive and see the trial till its end.'
Then came the electrifying climax of Tuesday's hearing. Pasbola showed Sharma copies of cheques that had been deposited at the bank with Indrani's signature on them. He accused Sharma of forging Indrani's signature and collecting the money for herself. In the back Indrani stood up in the accused box and very pointedly nodded her head up and down and mouthed, "She did!".
The only factor working against the AAP, and in favour of the Congress, is the infighting in the former.
A buoyant economic mood and tempting discounts, both online and offline, are fuelling a shopping frenzy this Diwali.
Anti-incumbency sentiment in Punjab puts SAD in a weak spot. But voters remain divided over AAP and Congress. Sahil Makkar reports.
This time however, the poll panel did not share the overall polling percentage at its briefing.
Clusters of policemen and television journalists alertly anticipated the arrival of Mumbai's joint commissioner of police, who, it was confirmed by most people I asked, does not visit court often. No one could remember when they had last heard of Deven Bharti appearing as a witness in a murder trial.
Dramatic minutes like the sentencing by a judge or a round of artful cross examination hog all the attention in a courtroom. But more noteworthy and infinitely more memorable are the human moments -- Like when a brother and sister hug before a judge. Or the steady support between a husband and a wife in court.
How to deal with a country that has made export of terror a reason to make the world notice and fund it? Rediff.com contributor Sanjeev Nayyar offers a few suggestions
'I returned to jail at 4.45. I was body searched and sent back to my cell.' 'A bowl of dal was kept there covered.' 'Another guard gave me a tablet and I became unconscious.' Accused One spoke about a similar incident happening to her in October 2015 and also with a bowl of dal.
The 25 odd witnesses that so far had given testimony had not come up with anything incriminating against Peter or the way Shivade characterised it -- "not even a whisper."
Over the weekend and Labour Day, a change seemed to have come over the former secretary and her memory had all but deserted her. Not unexpectedly, Kajal Sharma had lost much of her exactness. Her vocabulary had shrivelled to four or five words.
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