New Delhi: The Delhi High Court verdict sentencing Manu Sharma for life and ordering legal action against 32 hostile witnesses on Wednesday is a bad news for former external affairs minister K Natwar Singh.
For the list of 32 witnesses, who face possible prosecution for turning hostile during the trial of Jessica Lall murder case, includes the name of businessman Andaleeb Sehgal, a family friend of Singh.
A friend of Natwar Singh's son Jagat Singh, Sehgal is facing probe for his role in the UN oil-for-food scam. He is accused of helping the father-son duo in transferring illegal money paid by Iraqi authorities as kickback to their account.
Sehgal's is the second prominent name besides that of model-turned-actor Shayan Munshi, who retracted his statement given to the police, saying that he did not know Hindi.
Judges R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin have issued notices to the hostile witnesses, asking them to appear before the court on February 1 and explain why no action should be taken against them for what they did. In case they fail to satisfy the court, it would initiate action against them.
They also took strong exception to the trial court's lenient approach in dealing with hostile witnesses.
Expressing concern over the malady of hostile witnesses, the judges observed: "Witnesses turning hostile appears to be the order of the day. The courts must put an end to this kind of attitude."
They said: "The prosecution in support of its case had examined 101 witnesses. To our utter surprise, we found that during the trial as many as 32 witnesses including three eye witnesses to the murder and one ballistic expert had to be declared hostile by the prosecution. That is a sad state of affairs."
Others among the prominent prosecution witnesses, who turned hostile, included garment exporter Parikshit Sagar, ballistic expert Prem Sagar Minocha and Shiv Dass, an eyewitness and electrician at the Tamarind Court restaurant where the crime was committed on April 29, 1999.
Karan Rajput, another eyewitness, who figured in the list of hostile witnesses, is dead. None of the police witnesses has been included in the list.
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