Aftab Amin Poonawala. File.
| Photo Credit: PTI
A magisterial court on February 21 moved the Mehrauli murder case to a higher court for initiation of trial proceedings.
Accused Aftab Amin Poonawala, who allegedly strangled his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and chopped her body into pieces, will be produced before the Saket’s principal district and sessions judge on February 24.
Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla noted that the chargesheet was filed under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code.
“Scrutiny of documents is complete… Section 302 of the IPC is exclusively triable by a sessions court. Accordingly, the accused be produced before the principal district and sessions judge on February 24 at 2 pm,” the Magistrate said.
“The case is now committed to the sessions court,” he added.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Poonawala was produced in the Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla’s court and he requested he be allowed to carry a book of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), a notebook and a pen during the proceedings so that he could make notes and assist his advocate.
He also requested the court to grant permission to carry a religious book to the court.
The Magistrate directed Mr. Poonawala to file an application for this before the sessions court concerned.
During the proceedings, the Magistrate asked Mr. Poonawala if he has been given a physical copy of the chargesheet and if the pages were legible.
He replied in the affirmative.
Advocate M.S. Khan, who is representing Poonawala, informed the court that two applications were already filed in this court, one for the accused’s educational certificates and stationery items such as notepad and pencil, and the other for a proper” soft copy of the chargesheet.
Mr. Khan also said the footage related to the case provided to him in the pen drive were not in a sequence.
“The footage where Shraddha Walkar is talking on the Practo App is in small parts of 10-12 seconds duration each. They are not in a series or sequence,” he said.
The investigating officer (IO) replied that the soft copy of the chargesheet provided to Mr. Khan was divided into various folders and also included various footage such as those from the Practo App, crime scene photographs and pictures of the recoveries made during the investigation.
He said that everything pertaining to the investigation was already provided to Mr. Khan in the same manner as received by the police. Mr. Khan agreed that the pen drive provided to him consisted of two parts—the chargesheet and the FIR folders.
“Whatever is available, we will provide. The idea is to provide the chargesheet to the accused,” the Magistrate said.
He also asked Khan to “coordinate” with Mr. Poonawala.
The voluminous 6,629-page charge sheet was filed by the Delhi Police on January 24 and the court took its cognisance on February 7.
