By IANS,
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday directed the trial court hearing the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case to release Nupur Talwar on bail Sep 25. The slain teenager’s mother had been taken into custody April 30.
An apex court bench of Justice A.K. Patnaik and Justice J.S. Khehar said: “(The) trial court shall release Nupur Talwar on bail subject to its own satisfaction.”
The judges ordered that she be released Sep 25.
Pronouncing the order, Justice Patnaik said: “We direct the trial court may be allowed a week’s time to examine remaining material witnesses Vimla Sarkar and Chandra Bhushan or any other witness in the case, if these two witnesses are not available.”
Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra, who appeared for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), said that the trial was progressing well and “we are committed to complete the trial in December”.
Luthra told the court that the prosecution wanted to examine both Sarkar and Bhushan but they were not traceable.
“We are concerned that we wanted to examine these two witnesses but they are not available,” the ASG told the court.
“Vimla Sarkar and Chandra Bhushan are not traceable and the CBI intends to examine some other employees of the Talwars if they (Sarkar and Bhushan) are still not traceable,” Luthra said.
The court was told that witness Kalpana Mandal had been dropped as she was not expected to support the prosecution case.
Senior counsel K.V. Vishwanathan, who appeared for Nupur Talwar, told the court that ever since Aug 13 order of the court they had fully co-operated in the examination of 13 material witnesses.
The senior counsel told the court that initially they had five material witnesses and the list increased to 13 and now the investigating agency had introduced another three.
Vishwanathan contested the CBI’s “commitment” to complete the trial by December, saying that the trial would last about two years.
The CBI, in a 30-page affidavit filed in the Supreme Court Aug 9, said Nupur Talwar “is likely to tamper with the evidence and abscond in case she is released on bail”.
Nupur Talwar and her husband Rajesh Talwar are accused in the murder of their daughter Aarushi and destroying the evidences.
Nupur Talwar was arrested over four months ago. She challenged in the apex court the May 31 rejection of her bail plea by the Allahabad High Court. She is lodged in Dasna jail in Ghaziabad. Her husband is out on bail.
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.