Court sets aside jail term as man not given chance to defend

A Delhi court has set aside two year jail term awarded to a man for stealing articles belonging to a doctor from a private hospital, saying he was not given a fair opportunity to cross-examine witnesses.
The sessions court remanded the case back to a trial court which had awarded the jail term to the accused and said he should be given free legal aid if he is unable to engage a private counsel to represent him.
"Perusal of the record reveals that appellant did not get fair opportunity to cross-examine the material witnesses. He should have been offered free legal aid by the court in case, he was unable to engage a counsel to represent him," Special Judge Sanjay Garg-I said.

The court, while considering the appeal filed by Tamil Nadu native V K Raju, directed the trial court to re-summon the witnesses.
"In view of these reasons, the impugned order is set aside. Case is remanded back with the directions to trial court to re-summon witnesses and offer the same for cross examination to the appellant, subject to their availability. In case appellant is unable to engage counsel, trial court will see that he be provided free legal aid," it said.
The sessions court noted that the man could not examine material prosecution witnesses as he was not having any counsel being a poor.

According to the prosecution, Raju was caught in November 2001, while coming out of Dr Dev Nath Jha's room at St Stephen's Hospital here with some articles including a wrist watch and a pager.
During the trial, he pleaded innocence and claimed trial.
The trial court, in April this year, had held Raju guilty of trespass, theft and awarded him two years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000.