The Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed with cost a Publicity Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking transfer of investigation in the Shraddha murder case from Delhi Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Bench of Justice Satish Chander Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad on Tuesday said we find not a single good reason to entertain this plea.

The Court also said that “This is a kind of Publicity Interest Litigation as the deceased parents have no grievance against Delhi Police investigation but you have.”

The court also remarked that “We are not an investigation monitoring agency.”

The Court was also informed that the Delhi Police’s 80 per cent investigation is complete and a team of 200 police officials led by the Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP) rank officers are handling the investigation.

Advocate Joginder Tulli (Retd IPS) appeared for the petitioner stated that the investigation by Delhi Police, in this case, cannot be efficiently carried out due to administrative/staff paucity as well as lack of sufficient technical and scientific equipment to find out the evidence and the witness as the incident had taken place about six months back.

The petition stated that the minute and sensitive details of the investigation by the Delhi Police have been revealed to the public through the media.

The presence of media and other public persons at the place of recoveries, court hearings etc. of any accused amounts to their interference with the evidence and witnesses in the present case.

It also stated that the Delhi Police have not sealed the alleged place of the incident to date which is continuously being accessed by the public and media personnel.

The plea stated that in the present case, pertaining to a heinous and sensitive offence u/s 302/201 IPC and in the same sensitive information pertaining to the Investigation regarding recoveries, evidences etc. are being leaked continuously by the Police Station Mehrauli on a daily basis jeopardizing every material evidence and witness so far gathered, it added mentioning that the alleged crime scenes and scene of recoveries are being contaminated by public persons and media personnel on a daily basis due to the unfiltered disclosure of information by the Delhi Police.

“The forensic evidence in the present case has not been preserved properly by the Delhi Police since all the alleged recoveries are being touched and accessed by different public persons and media personnel within the Mehrauli Police Station, alleged scene of crime i.e. house of the deceased, place of recoveries i.e. Mehrauli, Chhattarpur forest etc. which are clearly evident in the various news coverage of the present case,” the plea read.

Due to faulty investigation, most of the heinous crimes result in the acquittal of the accused since as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, 2021 only 44 per cent of murder cases result in a conviction, stated the plea.
The Saket court today extended the police custody of Aaftab Poonawala to four more days after he was produced before the court via video conferencing in a special hearing.

Aaftab was produced before the Saket court here after his five-day police custody expired.

Aaftab is accused of strangling his live-in partner Shraddha Walkar and chopping her body into 35 pieces.

Delhi Police solved the six-month-old blind murder case and arrested Aftab Amin Poonawalla on the basis of Shraddha’s father’s complaint.

Aftab and Shraddha met on a dating site and later moved in together at a rented accommodation in Chhatarpur. Delhi police received a complaint from Shraddha’s father and registered an FIR on November 10.

Delhi Police interrogation revealed that Aftab Poonawala killed Shraddha on May 18 and later started planning for disposing of her body. He told police that he had read about human anatomy so that it could help him in chopping off the body.

Police said that Aftab, after searching on shopping mode Google, cleaned blood stains from the floor with some chemicals and disposed of stained clothes.

He shifted the body in the bathroom and bought a refrigerator from a nearby shop. Later, he chopped the body into small pieces and put them in the fridge.

Meanwhile, a Delhi court has ordered Rohini Forensic Science Lab to conduct a narco test of accused Aftab Poonawala within five days.