Aarushi murder: Magistrate appears as witness

Ghaziabad - In the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder, a magistrate Wednesday appeared in a court here as a CBI witness and said that he did not see any sign of grief on the faces of the teenager's parents the day after the May 16, 2008 incident.

Then joint magistrate Sanjay Chauhan appeared as the fourth witness before Central Bureau of Investigation Special Judge S. Lal and said he did not talk to Rajesh Talwar and Nupur Talwar, Aarushi's parents, when he visited the murder spot May 17 after his morning walk.

When defence counsel asked him how he could say that the Talwars were not grief stricken, the magistrate said he only observed from a distance.

The court would next hear the case July 24.

The magistrate stated before the court that he visited the murder spot in a private capacity and did not discuss the issue with his seniors.

He said he was merely a spectator at the spot and after a brief stay there he went back to his home in sector Gamma in Greater Noida.

Chauhan was questioned by the defence on the question whether he used to come daily for his morning walk from sector Gamma in Greater Noida to the Sector 25 stadium in Noida about 28 km away.

The magistrate answered in the positive and said on that day he noticed movement of a lot of police vehicles and being a magistrate of the area he visited the crime scene.

When defence lawyer Vijay Pal Singh Rathi asked him if he maintained any record of coming 28 km from his house merely for morning walk, the magistrate said he used to come by his private car hence had no record.

After alleging contradictions in the cross examination and statement of the magistrate recorded before the court and before the investigating officer, Rathi submitted before the court that the witness was not reliable.

Aarushi, 14, was found murdered at her parents' Noida residence May 16, 2008. The body of the family's domestic help Hemraj was found the next day on the terrace of the house.

The CBI special court has framed charges against the Aarushi's parents in the double murder case.

The court charged the Talwars under sections 302/34 (murder with common intention) and 201 (destruction of evidence with common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

In addition, the court charged Rajesh Talwar under section 203 (giving false information in respect of an offence committed) of the IPC.

Nupur Talwar was taken into custody April 30 and is lodged in Dasna jail in Ghaziabad district since then. She has challenged in the Supreme Court the May 31 Allahabad High Court order rejecting her plea for bail.