Court refuses defence plea to summon Mulayam, others

A Delhi court today rejected the plea of one of the accused in the December 16 gangrape case to to summon political leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Sharad Yadav and RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat to depose in his defence.
Vinay Sharma, who is facing trial along with three others, has also sought to make Abhijit Mukherjee, MP son of President Parnab Mukherjee, as defence witness saying he had also made statement against the demonstration and protest in the wake of the gangrape of a 23-year-old girl by six persons.
Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna, however, refused to summon them in Vinay's defence saying that they are not "relevant to decide the real dispute".

The court, however, allowed Vinay's counsel A P Singh to produce the CD of the video clippings through which he wanted to show that accused was not in the bus.
During recording of statement before the court, Vinay had claimed that he was not in the bus and had gone to a music function along with co-accused Pawan Gupta.
However, accused Mukesh during his deposition had told the court that he was driving the bus in which the girl was sexually assaulted and her male friend was brutally attacked by his elder brother Ram Singh, Vinay, Pawan, Akshay Thakur and the juvenile.

Special Public Prosecutor Dayan Krishnan raised objection to Vinay's defence witnesses saying, "he is taking the court for granted. The witnesses in the list are irrelevant".
"The court is hearing the case on day-to-day basis. He is deliberately delaying the trial," Krishnan said, adding that today he was suppose to bring the defence witnesses on behalf of Akshay, but they are not here and no reason has been given.
Vinay has also sought to make the then Home Secretary R K Singh and Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary as defence witness in the case, which was also refused by the court.