Delhi gangrape: Accused will go to SC, seek trial outside Delhi, says lawyer

Gangrape Magistrate sends case to fast track court, will be heard on day-to-day basis from January 21.

A month after the gangrape and torture of a 23-year-old woman who later died in a Singapore hospital, the trial of five men arrested in the case was sent to a fast track sessions court on Thursday. The lawyer for one of them said he would move the Supreme Court to shift the case out of Delhi.

A sixth accused is said to be a juvenile and police are seeking permission from the Juvenile Justice Board for an ossification test to establish his age.

Metropolitan magistrate Namrita Aggarwal sent the case of gangrape-cum-murder to the special fast track court of additional sessions judge Yogesh Khanna, where it will be heard from January 21 on day-to-day basis.

The five accused — bus driver Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh and their friends Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh — were produced in the Saket court on Thursday for the trial committal proceedings.

Speaking to reporters outside the court — the magistrate has banned the media from reporting court proceedings in the case — lawyers for the accused said they had received copies of the chargesheet and the e-challan filed by the police.

"All documents related to the chargesheet have been supplied to us today," advocate M L Sharma, counsel for accused Mukesh, told reporters.

V K Anand, advocate for Ram Singh, the driver of the bus in which the woman was gangraped, said he would approach the Supreme Court to get the trial transferred out of Delhi.

"They will not get a fair trial here since there is too much pressure. The trial should be shifted to any other place, except Delhi and UP," Anand said outside the court.

Sharma, too, voiced his "apprehension" of threat to his clients. "With the pressure on the court and police, I fear that my clients' lives are under threat. They might be killed before the trial is completed," Sharma said.

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