Date:21/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/21/stories/2008022160550300.htm

New Delhi

Hearing on appeals in CP shooting case begins

Staff Reporter

‘Trial court ignored evidence in Rathi’s favour’

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday began hearing on a day-to-day basis arguments on appeals by the Connaught Place shooting case convicts against their conviction by a trial court here last year.

A Crime Branch team led by then ACP S. S. Rathi of the Delhi police had killed two innocent businessmen in a moving car near The Statesman House in New Delhi on March 31, 1997, mistaking one of them for noted gangster Yasin. Beginning argument on behalf of his client Rathi, senior advocate Dinesh Chandra Mathur submitted that his client was innocent as the trial court had ignored evidence in his favour while deciding the case.

Mr. Mathur submitted that Rathi had not fired at the vehicle in which Pradeep Goel and his associate Jagjit Singh were travelling. “Besides he was away from the crime site when the vehicle was fired at resulting in the deaths.”