Delhi gangrape case: Supreme Court dismisses plea to shift trial

The Supreme Court today dismissed a plea to shift the trial in Delhi gangrape case to a place outside the national capital region.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir rejected a transfer petition which was claimed to have been filed on behalf of one of the six accused in the case.

The bench passed the order after going through the report filed by the sessions court in which it was said that advocate M L Sharma, who appeared before it on the transfer plea issue, had been given no authority by the accused to argue on his behalf.

"Your authority to appear in this matter has been totally denied by the accused," the bench said after going through the report.

Sharma then pleaded that he should be heard as an independent person in the case.

The bench, however, refused to allow him to argue in the case, saying, "We are unable to accept Sharma's submissions in the facts and circumstances of the case."

The controversy in the case arose after two advocates M L Sharma and V K Anand appeared before the apex court claiming to represent one of the accused Mukesh when the transfer petition came up for hearing.

The bench had then asked the sessions court, which is holding the trial in the case, to talk to Mukesh to find out who is his real counsel and whether he wanted to pursue the case for transfer of trial to a place outside Delhi.

The sessions court, after talking to the accused, filed a report in a sealed cover before the bench.

Mukesh is among the accused in the gangrape-cum-murder case of a 23-year-old paramedical student. She was gangraped and brutally assaulted by six persons in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16 last and then dumped on the road. She died in a Singapore hospital on December 29.

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