It was a battle of seven years, not just against the CBI to prove the innocence of Nupur and Rajesh Talwar but also to restore the honour of the couple and their murdered daughter, Aarushi, a victim of character assassination by the media and investigators.Tanveer Ahmed Mir , Talwars’ lawyer, recalls the long struggle.
Certain media houses and the CBI have said time and again after the High Court verdict that the Talwars were given the “benefit of the doubt” and were not proven innocent. What would you say to that?
I would just ask these people to read the court judgment. Rajesh and Nupur have been honourably exonerated by the court. In fact, the last two paras of the judgment have called out the CBI for stooping so low and fabricating evidence to frame the couple. They have tampered with the case property only to book the couple and the court took notice of this ... The couple has come out clean.
The Talwars will finally be free on Monday. Do you plan to meet them?
I had made a promise to the Talwars on November 25, 2013, when they were taken into the jail that I will overturn the judgment of the trial court and will be there at the gate of the Dasna jail to receive them when they walk out. Tomorrow [Monday] will be the day when I finally fulfil the promise I have made to them.
We are expecting that the formalities will be over and by 4 p.m. or 5 p.m., they should be out.
The case took a lot of time to reach its end. How has your relationship with the Talwars been since you first took up their case?
Between 2012 and 2013, before they were arrested, Nupur, Rajesh and I were like the three musketeers. We would be together for hours, preparing for the case. We literally lived our lives together that year. There was barely a Sunday I spent with my family that year.
A lot was written and said about the Talwars since the murder of Aarushi and Hemraj. What made you take up such a case, especially when an entire narrative was spun against your clients?
There was a witch-hunt against the Talwars by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the media. All kinds of things were said about a 13-year-old girl and a 50-year-old domestic help who was old enough to be her grandfather. The Talwars were also portrayed as sleazy ...
But what worked for us was the never-say-die spirit of Nupur and Rajesh. From the beginning, they had a strong belief in their innocence and in the legal system of this country and that in a way rubbed onto us as well.
How confident were you about winning the case?
I had personally gone through all the evidence and questioned all the witnesses. I knew from the argument we put forth that there was no chance that we could lose the case. However, the trial court failed to hear out our counter-arguments. But I was sure that with our evidence and examination of witnesses, I would be able to convince the judges at the High Court. It wasn’t easy. The witnesses took a complete U-turn. Doctors who conducted the post-mortem of Aarushi and Hemraj played to push the CBI’s theory. My fight was to restore the dignity of a girl and her parents.
