Court reserves order on Vishal Yadav’s bail plea

NEW DELHI - The Delhi High Court Tuesday reserved its order on the interim bail plea of Vishal Yadav, serving a life sentence for killing Nitish Katara. Vishal had wanted bail to attend his sister’s wedding later this month.

A division bench of Justices Anil Kumar and M.C. Garg reserved their order after the Uttar Pradesh Police contended that they have no objections if Vishal is given bail for the marriage Jan 26.

But Delhi Police Counsel Sanjiv Bhandhari argued before the bench and said: There are enough elder members in the family to perform the marriage rituals. There is no need of granting interim bail to Vishal.

Bhandhari also informed the court how Vishal had misused his bail term earlier and carried out a sting operation.

On this the court said: If the sting had been conducted, we cannot say it is the misuse of bail. He did that for collecting evidence for his defence.

The court had earlier allowed Vishal to attend his sister’s engagement ceremony Jan 3 on a five-hour parole.

Vishal and his cousin brother Vikas Yadav had kidnapped and killed Katara, son of an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, on the night of Feb 17, 2002 after abducting him from a marriage party in Ghaziabad as they were against the relationship between him and Bharti, Vikas’s sister.

In June last year, the two were sentenced to life imprisonment for Katara’s murder.

Vikas Yadav was Nov 1 granted 24-hour custodial parole to attend Bharti’s marriage.