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Have sought additional documents and evidence, says lawyer of murder accused in Sonali Phogat case
The chargesheet filed by the CBI before the judicial magistrate first class proves that the investigating agency failed to add anything substantial to the investigation done by the Goa Police and they are yet to establish a motive for the crime
: The lawyer of Sukhwinder Singh, one of the two accused charged with the murder of BJP leader Sonali Phogat, on Wednesday said that the central bureau of investigation (CBI) probing the case has failed to add anything substantial to the investigation by the Goa Police and that they have sought additional documents and evidence from the prosecution.
“The chargesheet filed by the CBI is self-contradictory and if you pursue the sections carefully, they have applied section 36 of the IPC [effect caused partly by act and partly by omission] -- commission because they allege that the accused forcibly administered her with an intoxicating drug (which we dispute), and further omission, which they say is because the accused failed to provide her with timely medical treatment,” Sukhwant Singh, Sukhwinder’s lawyer, told HT.
“The implication of this is that the substance which was administered to her was not fatal in nature and that she could have been saved if there was timely medical attention. There is an inherent contradiction in the CBI’s version,” Singh said, adding that they are preparing the documents and “will file for bail at an appropriate time.”
Sukhwant said that the chargesheet filed by the CBI before the judicial magistrate first class proves that the investigating agency failed to add anything substantial to the investigation done by the Goa Police and they are yet to establish a motive for the crime.
The defence has sought additional documents and evidence from the prosecution and has also formally applied for copies of CCTV relied upon by the prosecution to establish their case, he said.
The CBI took over the probe from the Goa Police in early September after the Goa government acceded to demands from her family and wrote to the Union government seeking a probe by the investigating agency.
The BJP leader was brought dead to St Anthony’s Hospital at Anjuna in the wee hours of August 23 after she spent the previous night at Curlies’ nightclub, where she was allegedly drugged with methamphetamine (MDMA) by his manager Sudhir Sangwan and his aide Sukhwinder, the two persons who accompanied her to the club.
