A Mumbai court on Saturday rejected an application moved by Sanjeev Khanna, former husband of Indrani Mukherjea and a co-accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, seeking release from jail.
"We wanted to question them in the jail and we have got permission," a CBI official said.
Indrani Mukerjea, the prime accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, had allegedly told a friend that Sheena's relationship with Rahul, her husband's son from earlier marriage, was "not permissible at any cost".
A special court on Tuesday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to complete its investigation in the sensational Sheena Bora murder case in the next 10 days and also allowed prime accused Indrani Mukerjea's plea to get copies of statement of witnesses recorded before the magistrate.
Mukerjea regained consciousness on Sunday and was "out of danger" as she responded to the treatment.
According to hospital sources, Indrani's counsel Gunjan Mangla met JJ Hospital Dean Dr TP Lahane, who apprised her about the condition of 43-year-old Indrani.
Sanjeev Khanna, the step father of Sheena Bora and a key accused in the sensational murder case, was on Tuesday remanded in judicial custody till September 21.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the sensational Sheena Bora murder case, on Saturday told a special court in Mumbai that prime accused Indrani Mukerjea had informed her husband and former media magnate Peter Mukerjea about killing her daughter on April 24, 2012.
Indrani Mukerjea wanted her husband Peter to believe that she was neither mother nor sister of Sheena and that the 24-year-old victim was very much alive, said the CBI.
CBI sources said that agency teams swooped down at the residences of Peter and Indrani, two each in Mumbai and Goa, Indrani's ancestral home in Guwahati, her driver Shyamvar Pinturam Rai's houses in Mumbai and Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh, and the residence of Sanjeev Khanna in Kolkata.
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.
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.
Shivade: "You didn't find any brain inside the brain cavity?" Dr Thakur nodded. The judge shocked: "Huh?!"
Rai said he failed to dispose of the gun on two occasions as he developed cold feet. He said he was arrested when he tried to get rid of the gun for third time.
Indrani looked cheerful and upbeat and announced she had quite recovered from her wounds...
It turned out that Indrani, who was wearing the Navratri Day 2 green, was fasting for the festival. That caused the impish CBI prosecutor Badami to ask her police detail, "looking for salvation?".
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.
Lawyer Amit Ghag got up to tell the judge that Shrikant Shivade -- Salman Khan and Peter Mukherjea's lawyer -- would take a morning flight from Jodhpur to Mumbai and would be in court by 3 pm on Friday to cross-examine Sub-Inspector Dalvi. For a moment, Judge Jagdale looks startled. "But isn't he caught up with that case in Jodhpur?" the judge asked.
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.
The lesson Waghmare sternly received on Monday from CBI Investigating Officer K K Singh and CBI Prosecutor Bharat Badami about the way a witness must answer questions from the defence seemed to have had only a marginal effect on him. On Tuesday the timid former office boy still chose, unpredictably and remarkably, to answer many a question in the manner of his choosing. He told the room categorically that he had asked Indrani's former secretary Kajal Sharma not to forge Sheena Bora's signature on her resignation letter.
In the 25 odd days that he has appeared before CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale, you have experienced the entire range of emotions just observing him. Everything from pity to irritation. To bafflement. And shock. You have scoured his face, gazed into his eyes, watched his expressions and body language, searching vigilantly for motives. And come away no wiser. Who is Shyamvar Rai? Does anybody know?
Why had the CBI decided to have Waghmare tell the court the tale surrounding this odd trip to Kolkata made for even odder reasons, close to a year-and-a-half after Sheena's murder? To show the kind of person Indrani was? And that the murder of her daughter was not a heat of the moment crime, given Indrani was capable of other odd, suspicious, premeditated acts like this?
Sanjeev Khanna stepped out of his usual sort of absent-minded personality to actively 'log into' the hearing, following the testimony alertly, at times standing up in the accused box to catch all of what was being said. His co-accused Peter Mukerjea and Indrani Mukerjea were less attentive, but were not switched off either.
'Could the Khar police and the CBI have tinkered with the driver's call data records?' 'And did their fiddling with the information not make it that they were tampering with the lives of people that were in the balance as a result of this case?'
'I'm not withdrawing any allegations. I want those CDRs (Peter's call data records).' 'Those are my feelings.'
Back to Sheena Bora's grave, via e-time travel