Not allowed to meet puri, says defence lawyer

The counsel for Shivraj Puri accused the police of defying court orders, saying the police did not allow him to meet his client on Saturday. Sanjeev K Ahuja reports.

The counsel for Shivraj Puri accused the police of defying court orders, saying the police did not allow him to meet his client on Saturday.

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He also said that on Friday, he was not allowed to meet his client in private.

According to defence lawyer Sartaj Baswana, the police did not let him see his client Puri on Saturday. Baswana said first he was made to wait for an hour on Friday at the police station saying the station house officer was not available and then later police personnel sat with them.

"On Friday, when the SHO arrived, I was allowed to meet my client and that too in the presence of two police officers. Scared of their presence, Puri was not able to communicate with me properly, nor could he speak of his possible poor treatment in the lock-up," Baswana said. According to the lawyer, Puri looked as if he was ill-treated and suspected that his client was even beaten up.

"He is not a hardened criminal and cannot be treated like murderer. Today, he requested me for medicines, as he entire body ached. He, in a way, tried to indicate he was being thrashed in the lock-up," the lawyer said.

On Saturday, Puri was taken for a medical examination at the civil hospital here.

The police, however, denied Baswana's allegations that Puri was physically abused in custody. "We did not allow the two to meet in isolation as the accused is involved in a serious financial crime running in over hundreds of crores of rupees. We cannot afford to take any risk in this matter. On Saturday, the accused was not available as he was taken to Delhi for an investigation," the SHO said.