By IANS,
New Delhi : Vikas Yadav, serving life sentence along with his cousin for the murder of MBA graduate Nitish Katara in February 2002, Friday withdraw his bail application after the Delhi High Court made it clear that it will not entertain it.
“I am not inclined to entertain your bail application neither am I declining it,” said the two-judge bench comprising Justice S. Ravindra Bhat and Justice Pratibha Rani.
After which senior advocate Sushil Kumar, counsel for Vikas Yadav, agreed to withdraw the application.
The bench said: “It is dismissed as withdrawn.”
Vikas Yadav, son of Uttar Pradesh politician D.P. Yadav, approached the bench seeking bail as he is languishing in jail since 2002.
“I (Vikas Yadav) have never been given bail by the trial court even though I tried on many occasions,” said Sushil Kumar, adding that since the last ten years he is in jail due to which he was never present at any of his family celebrations or festivals.
During the course of arguments, Kumar submitted before the bench that his client (Vikas Yadav) was convicted keeping in mind the motive behind the murder, as the person last seen with Katara and recovery of clues from the spot.
“All the three contentions by the trial court during conviction were false, as no incriminating evidence was recovered from the spot. There is also no disclosure pursuant to the recovery,” said Kumar.
He further argued that the watch and hammer was the key point for Vikas’ conviction. But there was no direct evidence against Vikas, the decision was taken on circumstantial evidence.
“This is a clear case of plant, the theory of hammer is introduced, which does not match with the confession statement of my client. This was the most hyped case from day one,” he said.
“It is an eminent fit case for bail,” said Kumar.
This was vehemently opposed by the Delhi Police counsel.
Earlier, in August 2009, the bench of Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice P.K. Bhasin had dismissed Vikas Yadav’s bail plea, saying: “Although Vikas is in custody for seven years and Vishal for over four years, the length of their incarceration cannot be a ground by itself for granting bail.”
Vikas and Vishal had kidnapped Nitish Katara, an MBA graduate and an Indian Administrative Service officer’s son, on the night of Feb 16, 2002, from a marriage party in Ghaziabad and killed him. Vikas was opposed to his sister Bharti’s intimacy with Nitish.
In June 2008, Vikas and Vishal Yadav were convicted by the trial court for the killing and sentenced to life imprisonment.