By IANS
New Delhi : The Delhi High Court Friday dismissed the plea of five doctors and six staff members of Apollo Hospital to rescind charges of tampering with evidence and misleading the probe filed against them in Rahul Mahajan drug case.
Justice Reva Khetrapal dismissed their petition, stating that there are no merits in it and all of them have to face the trial in the lower court.
During the arguments, former solicitor general Harish Salve, appearing for the doctors, argued that the police in the case had falsely implicated the five doctors and six medical staff.
Salve submitted that the police did not follow the procedure under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) before prosecuting them. He pointed out two separate FIRs (First Information Reports) filed by the police for a single offence at Sarita Vihar police station last year.
Delhi Police counsel, however, submitted that the investigating agency only complied with the order of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, who asked it to register a separate case.
Mahajan, son of the late Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Mahajan, was admitted to hospital June 1, 2006 following an alleged drug overdose.
The police Oct 30, 2006 charge-sheeted, five doctors – Mukul Pandey, Chief Medical Officer Ali Mohammed Ganai, Prasad Rao, Abha Gupta and Anupam Sibbal – and six other members of hospital staff under sections 182 (giving false information to public servants), 201 (disappearance of evidence) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code.