INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - JANUARY 1st - JANUARY 15th
- 2008
CBI WANTS TO SEE JASBIR IN PERSON
The CBI has told the Delhi High Court that it was difficult for it to record the statement of Jasbir Singh - a US-based witness in the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom case - through video conferencing. Congress leader Jagdish Tytler is facing trial in the case.
Additional solicitor general P P Malhotra, appearing for the CBI, submitted before a bench of Justice S K Kaul that it was difficult for the investigating agency to record the statement of Singh through video conferencing. The California-based witness in the case never appeared before the CBI to prove his credential so as to enable the agency to record his statement through video conferencing, said Mr. Malhotra. He, however, assured the court that the CBI would not file a closure report till the disposal of petition.
On that, the court issued notice to the CBI and fixed February 27 for further hearing on the matter. Jasbir Singh had moved the court seeking direction to the CBI that his statement be recorded in an American court.
Singh, who was declared untraceable by the CBI, had sought quashing of a notice issued by the investigating agency asking him to come to the country and give his statement in the case.
The CBI, following a trial court order directing it to re-investigate Mr Tytler's role in the case, had issued notice to Singh on January 2 under Section 160 of the CrPC, which empowers the probe agency to seek presence of a witness.
The CBI should have moved the petition under Section 166A (1) (which allows non-resident Indian to testify in foreign courts on the request of probe agency), the petition had alleged. In an affidavit before Nanavati Commission, which inquired into the anti-Sikh riots, the witness had stated that on November 3, 1984, he had overheard Mr. Tytler rebuking his men for nominal killing of Sikhs in his constituency.
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