Nirbhaya case: Delhi HC reserves order on plea seeking FIR against sole witness

A Delhi court on Thursday reserved till January 6 the order on an application filed by the father of one of the death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya rape case which questioned the credibility of the sole witness and claimed that he was "tutored".

The petition which was filed by convict Pawan Kumar Gupta's father sought registration of FIR against the girl's friend for perjury for giving false testimony in the court.

The sole eye-witness was accompanying the 23-year-old girl when she was raped and murdered by six men on a moving bus on December 16, 2012.

It claimed that the boy accompanying Nirbhaya in the bus turned the case into a "media trial" by charging money from news channels to give interviews.

"This calls for an independent investigation into the perjury committed by him, being the sole witness, his testimony has strongly influenced the outcome of the case," the complaint stated. Perjury relates to willfully making a misrepresentation under oath.

In the last proceedings, Metropolitan Magistrate Sudhir Kumar Sirohi had said that the witnesses record statements "under oath and what they say outside the courtroom cannot raise a question on their credibility as a witness".

Besides Pawan Kumar Gupta, three others - Akshay, Vinay, and Mukesh are facing the gallows in the case.

The main accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail during the trial. Another accused was a minor at the time of the commission of the crime and was sent to a reform facility and released after three years.