Nitish Katara case: HC dismisses Vishal Yadav's parole plea

The Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea of Vishal Yadav, serving life term in the Nitish Katara murder case, for three-month parole for arranging funds for his family.

Justice S P Garg denied the relief to the convict who had said he has to sell a property to arrange money and wanted to file an appeal challenging the 2014 order of the high court in the murder case.

The court, however, said Yadav can apply for custody parole for the purpose, if he intends to.

Vishal had sought a three-month parole to engage a lawyer and make other arrangements to exercise his legal and constitutional rights.

The plea was opposed by Delhi police's Additional Standing Counsel Rajesh Mahajan on the grounds that there was a threat to the life of the victim's mother Neelam Katara and also to the lone witness in the case.

Vishal had claimed there was no one else to look after his daughter, studying in class 10, for her education and that he has to dispose of his property in Ghaziabad's Vaishali to arrange funds for her studies and his litigation.

On August 29 last year, 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 Vikas 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 Bharti Yadav, the sister of Vikas Yadav.

Bharti is the daughter of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav who is in jail in connection with another murder case.

Katara was murdered as Vishal and Vikas Yadav did not approve of his affair with Bharti because they belonged to different castes, the lower court had said in its verdict.