By IANS,
New Delhi : A city court Tuesday reserved its order in the Nitish Katara murder case after completing month-long, day-to-day hearing. The court is likely to pronounce the verdict May 14.
Additional Sessions Judge Ravinder Kaur reserved the judgement after hearing final arguments in the case.
Earlier, the court slammed the defence counsel for taking unnecessary adjournments and asked them to conclude theirarguments by April 15.
The verdict will bring to an end the high-profile case in which former Rajya Sabha member D.P. Yadav’s son is the prime accused.
The prosecution Monday continued with its rebuttal of the points raised by the defence counsel of the accused – D.P.Yadav’s son Vikas and his cousin Vishal Yadav.
Opposing the defence arguments that key witness Ajay Katara’s statement could not be relied upon as he had approached the police around a month after the incident, the prosecution quoting judgements of the apex court said despite the delay the witness’s statement can be relied upon.
The prosecution argued that the hammer, with which Nitish Katara was killed, was, contrary to the defence claims, examined by a doctor during the investigation for the blood stains on it.
The defence contended that the prosecution failed to establish its case.
The defence lawyers questioned authenticity of Ajay’s statement as he had recorded it almost a month after the killing.
Nitish Katara, son of a senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by Vikas Yadav, his cousin Vishal Yadav and Sukhdev Yadav on Feb 16-17 night, 2002. They resented Nitish’s alleged relationship with Vikas’s sister Bharati.
Nitish’s body was later recovered from village Khurja in Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh.