NEW DELHI: A formal trial in the sensational Shraddha Walkar murder case will begin before a principal sessions judge here on Friday.
Magistrate Aviral Shukla, who sent the case to a higher court, also directed main accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala to file a fresh application before principal district and sessions judge, Saket, on his plea for carrying religious books during hearings.
Poonawala, 28, allegedly strangled his live-in partner Walkar on May 18 last year and sawed her body into several pieces which he kept in a fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in South Delhi's Chattarpur locality.
Magistrate 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, 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 Poonawala to file an application for this before the sessions court concerned.
During the proceedings, the magistrate asked 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.
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 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 Khan in the same manner as received by the police.
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 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.