The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to urgently hear a plea in the Kathua rape and murder case. The petition, filed by the father of the eight-year-old girl who was abducted, repeatedly raped and murdered in January, has sought to have the case shifted from Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district to Chandigarh.
The top court will hear the plea at 2 pm, the Hindustan Times reported. The hearing will take place at the Kathua sessions court, but the juvenile accused in the case will be tried by a judicial magistrate’s court under the Juvenile Justice Act. The counsel for accused constable Tilak Raj told ANI that the defence had not been provided a copy of the full chargesheet that the Crime Branch of the Jammu and Kashmir Police filed in the case on April 9. “We are depending on information from social media,” Aseem Sahni claimed. “We are handicapped.”
The Crime Branch will hand over notices to the Jammu Bar Council and the Kathua Bar Council to appear before the Supreme Court on Thursday, Firstpost reported. On Friday, the Supreme Court had issued a notice to the Bar Council of India and the two bar associations, agreeing to hear a plea against a group of lawyers who tried to stop the police in Kathua from filing the chargesheet in the case.
Lawyers in New Delhi will hold a protest march at 3 pm on Monday against the conduct of advocates of the Jammu Bar Association, who had come out in support of the accused in the rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl.