ABOUT TWO months after they walked free in the Jessica Lall murder case, seven of the accused, including Manu Sharma, on Tuesday appeared before the Delhi High Court, which is hearing a fresh appeal filed by the Delhi Police.
The Division Bench of justices Manmohan Sarin and J.M. Malik granted bail to all seven of them and issued a non-bailable warrant against Vikas Gill. The Delhi Police's counsel, Mukta Gupta, told the bench that a warrant could not be served on Gill - who had allegedly driven Manu Sharma to Chandigarh after the murder - as he was absconding. A resident of Jagraon near Ludhiana, Gill is believed to have escaped to the US.
Manu Sharma has been asked to furnish a bond of Rs 1 lakh while the other accused - Amardeep Singh Gill, Alok Khanna, Harvinder Chopra, Raja Chopra, S.S. Sharma and Yograj Singh - will have to submit a bond of Rs 50,000.
Another accused, Vikas Yadav, was not produced in the court as he was in judicial custody in connection with the Nitish Katara murder case.
Agreeing to the request of Gupta that some restrictions would have to be imposed on the accused, lest they abscond like Vikas Gill, the court said they would have to take the permission of the court before leaving the country. If they violate bail conditions, the court can order their arrest.
{{/usCountry}}Agreeing to the request of Gupta that some restrictions would have to be imposed on the accused, lest they abscond like Vikas Gill, the court said they would have to take the permission of the court before leaving the country. If they violate bail conditions, the court can order their arrest.
{{/usCountry}}Manu Sharma and the rest of the accused have retained the lawyers who appeared for them in the trial court.
In an attempt to speed up the hearing, the high court sought the assistance of the Delhi Police to complete the translation of trial court records from Hindi to English within six weeks.
In February, the trial court had acquitted all the accused, sparking a public outcry. A month later, on March 22, the Delhi Police filed an appeal seeking their conviction on 92 grounds.