By IANS,
Ghaziabad : In the Aarushi murder case, the CBI failed to present a maid as witness in a special court here Thursday and claimed that the slain teenager’s parents, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, may have won her over.
The probe agency told Special Judge S. Lal that the Talwars seemed to have won over maid Kalpna Mandal as she refused to take the witness box.
The CBI had earlier urged the court to issue summons against Mandal.
In their application, the investigators submitted that they contacted the maid and tried to persuade her to come to court for deposition but she did not.
From her behaviour it seemed she had been won over by the Talwars, the probe agency said while expressing its inability to present her in court.
Defence lawyers filed an application objecting to the CBI allegation against the Talwars that they had influenced the witness.
They submitted that the agency was playing a trick so that Nupur Talwar’s bail application, scheduled to come up in Supreme Court Sep 17, got rejected.
The agency earlier told the apex court that if Nupur Talwar was granted bail she might influence witnesses.
After receiving the CBI and the defence applications, Special Judge Lal adjourned the hearing till Friday.
Aarushi, 14, was found murdered at her parents’ Noida residence May 16, 2008. The body of her domestic help Hemraj was found the next day on the terrace of the house.
Aarushi’s parents are accused in the double-murder.
Her mother Nupur Talwar was taken into custody April 30 and she challenged in the apex court the May 31 Allahabad High Court order rejecting her bail plea. She is lodged in Dasna jail in Ghaziabad. Rajesh Talwar is out on bail.