Manu Sharma's father seeks copy of HC notice

NEW DELHI: Father of Manu Sharma, sentenced to life imprisonment in Jessica Lall murder case, on Friday moved an application before the Delhi High Court seeking a copy of a notice issued by the court to co-accused Vikas Yadav last year.
    
Filing the application through his lawyer Harish Ghai, Manu's father Venod Sharma, former Haryana Minister, stated that he had inspected the entire court record but failed to get a copy of the notice issued during hearing on an appeal in the case.
    
He pleaded before the Court to provide him a copy which he wanted as a part of the record to prepare his son's defence in the Supreme Court.
    
The apex court has fixed November 27 as the date for hearing of the appeal challenging the High Court's conviction order against Manu, his friends Vikas Yadav and Amandeep Singh Gill.
    
The fresh application is likely to come up for hearing on Monday in the High Court.
    
On December 18, 2006, the Bench of Justice R S Sodhi and Justice P K Bhasin had sentenced Manu to life imprisonment and Yadav and Gill to four years jail term for the murder of Jessica Lall on April 29-30, 1999.
    
Earlier, the Bench had passed an oral order issuing notice to Yadav asking his counsel to explain why a case of common intention behind the murder could not be made out against his client in this case.
    
The Bench had expressed dissatisfaction over the failure of his counsel K N Balgopal to answer a query repeatedly posed by it as to why Yadav could not be tried for having common intention, along with other accused, to murder of Jessica.