New Delhi, November 7
The Delhi High Court today dismissed the application of Jessica Lall murder case key accused Manu Sharma for shifting his appeal from a Division Bench hearing after a report in a newspaper had made certain references about a past incident pertaining to his bail plea.
The Bench of Mr Justice R S Sodhi and Mr Justice P K Bhasin, which was pleaded by Manu’s counsel Ram Jethmalani to “recuse” itself from hearing the case, dismissed such a request, saying the appeal was being heard in open court for anyone to see and there was no question of buckling under pressure by the judiciary due to media criticism.
“We adopt an open court hearing in every case and it is open for public debate, discussion and criticism,” the Bench observed, while making it clear that it would continue to hear the appeal.
Mr Justice Sodhi, to whom the newspaper report had particularly referred in its item published last week, said “insulating ourselves will rather result in great injustice to parties in the case.”
The court did not agree with Jethmalani’s contention that in the event of the Bench continuing to hear the case in the wake of the article in a newspaper, the judges should withdraw from the case, otherwise it would be “prejudiced” against his client.
Mr Jethmalani was non-committal whether he would continue to defend Manu or not.
