Dec 16 gangrape: accused seeks to make Delhi CM def witness

An accused in the December 16 gangrape trial today sought permission of a special court to make Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit a defence witness in the case.
After the court concluded recording of statement of all the accused, Akshay Thakur filed a list of defence witnesses before Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna to prove his innocence.
Producing the list before the court, Akshay's counsel A P Singh said the Delhi Chief Minister should be called as a defence witness as she had complained of interference by the Delhi police officers in recording of the 23-year-old gangrape victim's statement by the SDM in December last year.

"We want to call Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit as a defence witness to prove the controversy regarding the false and planted statement of the victim," Singh said.
Special Public Prosecutor Dayan Krishnan opposed Akshay's request saying the counsel is doing it to get publicity as the SDM was already cross-examined extensively by them.
"There is no need for calling so many witnesses. Just to establish that the accused was not present in Delhi, I think one or two of the family members is enough. Most of the witnesses are irrelevant and have nothing to do with the case," he said.

The court, however, reserved its order for tomorrow.

Soon after the girl's statement was recorded in December, the sources had said that SDM Usha Chaturvedi had claimed that three senior police officers had prevented the video recording of the victim's statement. She had also alleged the officials wanted the SDM to use their questionnaire.
Later, Dikshit shot off a letter to Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde over the alleged interference of police.
Denying the allegations, Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar had said police never forced any questionnaire on SDM.