In a U-turn, Shankar Mishra, the man accused of urinating on an elderly woman co-passenger on an Air India flight along with exposing himself in front of her, told a Delhi court on Friday he did not commit the offensive act. The event unfolded on an Air India New York-New Delhi flight on November 26 last year.
This claim by his lawyer comes after the denunciation of the accused by some of the co-passengers and even a string of WhatsApp exchanges Mishra had with the victim which suggested the incident indeed took place.
The accused claimed that the woman urinated on herself. "I'm not the accused. There must be someone else who peed or it must be her who urinated," Mishra's lawyer submitted before the court.
His defence advocate Ramesh Gupta alleged that she was "suffering from some disease related to prostate which several 'kathak dancers' seem to suffer from."
He went on to claim that "the flight's seating system was such that no one could go to her seat."
He added: "Her seat could only be approached from behind", and said that, in any case, "the urine could not reach to the seat's front area."
On this, Additional Sessions Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla observed that, "It is not impossible to go from one side of the flight to the other. Sorry, but I have travelled as well. Anybody from any row can come around and go to any seat."
The counsel also told the judge that the passenger sitting behind the complainant "did not make any such complaint."
The counsel made the submission before Additional Sessions Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla while arguing against a Delhi police petition. It sought revision of a January 7 order passed by a magisterial court denying police his custodial interrogation while sending Mishra to 14-day judicial remand.
The judge disposed of the application, saying the submissions made before him did not seem to have been made in front of the Metropolitan Magistrate. He said police can approach the magisterial court with its application afresh.
Metropolitan Magistrate Komal Garg had on Wednesday denied bail to Mishra while calling his act "utterly disgusting and repulsive".
The court said the act has shocked the civic consciousness of people and needed to be deprecated.
Earlier during the arguments, the judge asked police if the complainant had given any statement that there was a prior altercation or enmity with the accused. The prosecution replied in the negative.
"Then the case relates only from him leaving (his seat) to returning. You can question him in jail as well," the judge said.
Mishra was reportedly arrested at midnight, between 12.30 am and 1 am, from a service apartment in Sanjay Nagar in Bengaluru North on January 7.
US banking giant Wells Fargo on Friday sacked a top Indian executive now being pursued by police for allegedly urinating on a fellow passenger aboard an Air India flight.
Shankar Mishra, who is the vice president of US banking giant Wells Fargo India's operations, was terminated after the 72-year-old woman wrote to Air India's management to complain about the November incident.
The Delhi police registered an FIR against Mishra on January 4 on the complaint of the woman.
(With PTI, ANI inputs)