But today, around noon, with exactly the same case they had on day one under the Excise Act and for bailable offences, they arrested the socialite and her family, watched their case crumble before a city magistrate five hours later and the Ramanis and Mailhot walking out, smiling, probably only a little lesser than usual, soon after.

The reason is that the police hardly have a case under the Excise Act against socialite and family. A case based only on wavering eyewitness accounts and three seized liquor bottles and four empty glasses.

The police made no mention of the real case they could have registered, much more serious. One about the Ramanis destroying vital evidence minutes after Manu Sharma shot dead model Jessica Lal inside a restaurant inBina's Qutab Colnnade on April 30. Statements given by stewards at the restaurant have revealed that someone wiped away blood stains from Jessica's wounds on the floor under Bina's instructions. Someone else cleared away umpteen liquor bottles illegally emptied by 600 guests that night.

Or that it is more or less confirmed that Bina and Malini were acquainted with Manu Sharma: Bina didn't just grapple with an ``unknown man who had shot dead Jessica''. Or even the fact that Joint Commissioner of Police (southern range) Amod Kanth himself had said that the Ramanis were not co-operating with investigators, even three days after the incident.

About not adding sections for tampering with evidence, now nine days after the incident, Kanth said today: ``We will do so once we have evidence that she was trying to screen the offender.'' Added DCP (south) Sudhir Yadav: ``That possibility is still open. We are conducting more investigations.''So nine days later, and with the possibilities still open, the police wentahead with a loosely prepared case based on the original FIR they had registered on April 30. A little after noon today, investigators summoned Bina, Malini and George to the Mehrauli Police station for another round of questioning.

Said Bina, after she was released on bail later: ``They never told us that they would arrest us. There were no arrest warrants.'' She claimed the questions stopped suddenly, a man in khaki pushed forward three pieces of paper, with ``something written in Hindi'' that she didn't understand. ``I can't read Hindi, so I asked them to read it aloud. They had written that we had identified Manu from his photographs. And that I was running an illegal bar and had illegally employed women to serve liquor. I refused to sign, so did George & Malini,'' added Bina.

According to the FIR, Bina did all of these. Factors which contributed to a a tiff between Manu and Jessica and Malini over a drink, and finally the shooting.

``However, never mind the tamasha today. We can always arrest themagain.'' said SHO Surender Kumar. ``We are looking into the tampering of evidence bit. We are also examining whether the Ramanis and her Canadian husband were illegally running business in India. Bina holds a British passport and Malini has an American one. We have seized all three passports.''

Manu Sharma taken to Chandigarh