HC rejects Nisham’s plea

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court dismissed a petition filed by Mohammed Nisham, sole accused in the case relating to the murder of Chandrabose, a security guard in Thrissur, challenging the Thrissur First Additional Sessions Court order rejecting his plea to further cross-examine prime witness Anoop. Anoop, a colleague of Chandrabose, had earlier turned hostile while he was examined before the court. However, he later stuck to his earlier statement given to the police. He had deposed before the sessions court that he was threatened by Mohammed Nisham’s younger brother Razaq to retract from his earlier statements.

The sessions court, while rejecting Nisham’s plea for re-examination, had observed that the petition was capricious and vexatious and was filed only with the idea to protract the proceedings and prevent time-bound disposal of the case. The petition of Nisham filed in the High Court said that further cross-examination of the witness was absolutely necessary. Justice P. Ubaid, while adjourning the hearing on another petition challenging the rejection of Nisham’s plea by the sessions court to examine certain media persons, observed that it was not known what was the relevance in cross-examining these media persons. In fact, the media had been reporting the case since the commission of the offence by the accused.

HC rejects Nisham’s plea

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by Muhammed Nisham, an accused in the case relating to the murder of a security guard against Thrissur Sessions Court order declining his plea to examine the DVD containing preparation of scene mahazar as evidence during the trial.

Justice B Kemal Pasha passed the order on a petition filed by Nisham seeking a directive to the trial court to play the video recordings. The sessions court rejected the plea on the ground that it was not an electronic record admissible in evidence as it did not contain proper certification under the provisions of the Indian Evidence Act and it, not being a statement of the witnesses, the defence could not use it for contradicting the witnesses.

The High Court observed that it did not find any illegality or jurisdictional error in the order passed by the trial court.

The court observed that when it was only a scene mahazar and when those documents were recorded as things which were available at the scene at the time, the request of the accused to make use of it was not legally sustainable.

The court made it clear that the trial court had not made any observation with regard to the admissibility or otherwise of the contents of the compact discs.