NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the plea of Indrani Mukerjea, an accused in her daughter Sheena Bora murder’s case, to travel abroad during pendency of the trial.
Expressing doubt whether she will return to the country to face trial, a bench of Justices M M Sundaresh and Rajesh Bindal refused her request to go abroad and directed that the trial be concluded within one year, after which she could seek relief. “There is no guarantee that you will come back,” the bench observed.
The court had earlier sought response from CBI on Mukerjea’s plea to allow her to visit the UK and Spain to activate her bank accounts there and also to change her will after divorce.
Mukerjea, a British citizen, alleged that her bank account in Spain had been deactivated and her biometrics were required to get it activated. She approached the apex court through her advocate Sana Raees Khan after Bombay HC quashed the trial court order allowing her to go abroad. She said she needed to get a new Eurobank account to enable her to pay pending taxes and bills in Spain and she was also required to change her will and power of attorney post her divorce.
“CBI has realised that there is no case made out against the accused and as such, only with the intention of prolonging the trial, the prosecuting agency has been delaying the trial on one pretext or the other. There is no certainty of the number of witnesses, schedule of witnesses, time of conducting and concluding the trial, so on and so forth. The theory of the prosecution has been established to be nothing but a myth and the agency is completely directionless and clueless, and as such there is no likelihood of an early conclusion of the trial in the near future,” Mukerjea said in her petition.
On July 19, the trial court had allowed Mukerjea’s plea to visit the UK and Spain for 10 days. But the order was challenged in Bombay HC which quashed the order on Sept 27, compelling her to approach SC.