A Delhi court today re-examined a friend of Bollywood film maker Mahmood Farooqui, who is facing prosecution for allegedly raping an American researcher here last year.
Prosecution witness and Farooqui's childhood friend, Ashish Singh, whose re-examination was allowed by the Delhi High Court after the US national had moved a plea saying some new facts have been introduced which were going against the prosecution case, for which, Ashish needed to be re-examined.
In his re-examination before Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain, Ashish denied the suggestions of complainant's counsel Vrinda Grover that he wanted to aid the defence of Farooqui as he was his childhood friend.
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He also denied the suggestion that he was a part of an "elaborate cover up" to save Farooqui and therefore was deposing falsely regarding the presence of the accused's wife in the house at the time of the alleged rape incident on March 28, 2015.
He was also cross-examined by Farooqui's counsel.
The court, which had concluded hearing final arguments, today fixed the matter again for final arguments on February 29 after this development.
The High Court had on February 12 allowed Ashish to be re-examined before the trial court while allowing the plea of the complainant.
On October 8 last year, Ashish had recorded his statement before the trial court and had claimed that he had reached the accused's house at around 8.30 pm on the night of alleged incident and the complainant had arrived some time later.
He had deposed that after some time when the researcher said she wanted to leave, Farooqui had booked a cab in which she had left.
Farooqui, who is out on bail, has denied all allegations against him.
The woman, in her complaint, had alleged that Farooqui was drunk when he raped her at his house where she had gone to get his help for her research work.
On September 9, 2015, the court had started the trial in the case after framing rape charge under section 376 of IPC against Farooqui.
The police had on June 19 last year lodged the FIR against Farooqui on the woman's complaint after which the co- director of the film, 'Peepli Live', was arrested.
On July 29, 2015, a charge sheet was filed against Farooqui alleging that he had raped the 30-year-old research scholar from Colombia University at his Sukhdev Vihar house in south Delhi on March 28 last year.
