Katara case: HC declines early hearing of Vikas Yadav plea for furlough

The Delhi High Court today declined to entertain a plea of Vikas Yadav, who is in jail for life for the murder of Nitish Katara, for an early hearing of his petition seeking furlough.
Yadav had sought early hearing on the ground that his mother was unwell but Justice Indermeet Kaur declined the relief and said the matter would be taken up on the date already fixed on April 10.
The plea was opposed by the state, represented by Additional Criminal Standing counsel Rajesh Mahajan, saying no medical records of his mother have been placed on record to show there was any urgency.

Yadav had sought furlough, a leave from jail for a certain period of time in a year for inmates serving sentences, for 21 days by claiming that he was being arbitrarily denied the relief by the authorities.
The court had earlier asked why the relief be not granted to him if there was no apprehension of a threat to the witnesses, including the victim's mother, in the case.
However, the victim's mother, Neelam Katara, and another witness, Ajay Katara, strongly opposed grant of furlough to the convict.

The police has also opposed grant of furlough to Yadav on the ground that he did not satisfy the eligibility requirements for the relief.

It had also said that a division bench of the high court while convicting and sentencing him to a 25-year life imprisonment had stated that he would not be given any remission during his jail term.
On August 29, 2017, the Supreme Court had dismissed his plea seeking review of its verdict sending him to prison for 25 years.
The apex court had also awarded a 25-year jail term to his cousin Vishal Yadav and 20 years in prison for third convict Sukhdev Pehalwan in the case.
The top court had earlier dismissed the appeals against their conviction in the case of kidnapping of Katara from a marriage party on the intervening night of February 16-17, 2002 before killing him for his alleged affair with Vikas Yadav's sister Bharti.

Bharti is the daughter of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav who is in jail in connection with a murder case.
Katara was murdered as Vishal and Vikas Yadav did not approve of the victim's affair with Bharti because they belonged to different castes, the lower court had said in its verdict.