(UNI) The Delhi High Court ordered the prosecution of Bollywood actor Shayan Munshi and ballistic expert PS Manocha for perjury in the Jessica Lal murder case.
Both the prime witnesses had turned hostile.
A bench comprising Justices Ravindra Bhat and GP Mittal, however, dropped perjury charges against 17 other witnesses and absolved them in the case.
Manu Sharma, high-profile son of a Haryana Congressman, is serving life imprisonment on charges of murdering Jessica Lal in April 1999.
The HC observed that the witnesses had deliberately lied on oath and turned hostile to benefit Manu Sharma and took suo motu cognisance in the matter and summoned 18 witnesses to depose again.
The witnesses were questioned at their conflicting statements during the trial following allegations that they received huge pecuniary benefits from Manu Sharma to turn hostile.
The court had reserved its order on May 4, 2011.
In 1999, Jessica Lal was murdered at a party organised by socialite Bina Ramani at her Tamarind Court Qutub Colonnade restaurant in Mehrauli.
Manu, son of Congress leader Venod Sharma, had arrived at the party in the late hours along with Vikas Yadav, son of DP Yadav, and some others. The row between Jessica, who was working as celebrity barmaid, and Manu Sharma started when she refused to serve liquor as it was very late and bar was closed.
Jessica was shot dead by Manu.
Munshi was present in the party and had lodged the First Information Report(FIR) in the case. According to Munshi, he cannot be said to be hostile as the Supreme Court also used part of his deposition in convicting the accused.
Munshi and 31 other witnesses were accused of retracting from their earlier statements which helped the accused to get away.
Prosecution had urged the High Court to refer 19 out of the 31 hostile witnesses, including Munshi, to the magisterial court for their trial on charges of perjury.
It had pointed out that of the total 31 witnesses, only 19 were available for trial as three had died while the court had itself discharged rest of them earlier on the ground that there was no major deviation between their statements to the police and later to the court.
The 19 persons, including socialite Andleeb Sehgal, ballistic experts Roop Singh and Prem Sagar Manocha, electrician Shiv Shankar Dass and eyewitness Jagannath Jha were tried by the court to ascertain whether any charges of perjury are made out against them.
Manocha was probing into the possibility whether two bullets were shot or one. Allegations against Roop Singh are that he abused his official position and changed the ballistic reports of the bullets whereby giving false evidence in court.
The HC held both Munshi and Manocha guilty of suppressing facts and lying on oath before the court and ordered their prosecution for perjury.
The court did not find much evidence against the other witnesses for having been influenced to retract from their earlier statement and acquitted them in the case. UNI
