‘Talwar shouldn’t get copy of report’

There seems to be no ‘closure’ for the Talwars. On Friday, CBI counsels termed Dr Rajesh Talwar an ‘accused in the case’ and ‘no more a complainant in the case’ during a hearing on the CBI’s 31-page closure-report in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case.

There seems to be no ‘closure’ for the Talwars. On Friday, CBI counsels termed Dr Rajesh Talwar an ‘accused in the case’ and ‘no more a complainant in the case’ during a hearing on the CBI’s 31-page closure-report in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) further argued that Talwar was not entitled to a copy of the closure report, filed in a Ghaziabad court on December 29, 2010.

During the nearly half-an-hour-long hearing on Friday morning in CBI’s Special Judicial Magistrate (SJM) court, Talwar’s counsel, Satish Tamta, requested the court for a copy of the closure report, at which CBI’s senior public prosecutor RK Saini intervened and said, "Dr Rajesh Talwar is an accused in the case and presently out on bail. He is not entitled to the copy. He had earlier filed an FIR against his domestic help, Hemraj, who was later found murdered. He has misguided police investigations."

The court asked Saini that if Talwar was an accused, why did the CBI not file a chargesheet against him? "In our report, all allegations are against him," Saini further argued. Talwar’s counsel Satish Tamta said Talwar was a complainant in the case and a copy of closure report be handed over to him.

Later in the day, the court ordered CBI officials to hand over a copy of the closure report to Talwar’s counsels, with pages of annexure.

In its court order, it maintained that "the court has so far not examined the case diary and related documents and cannot give an opinion about anyone being an accused."

The CBI had filed its final report after it failed to find sufficient evidence against the ‘original’ three accused Raj Kumar Sharma, Krishna Thadarai and Vijay Mandal.

Before detailing a bunch of ‘circumstantial evidence,’ the CBI had stated that it did not find sufficient evidence to prove charges under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (destruction of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code against Talwar.

The court has fixed January 21 as the next date of hearing in the case.