Nupur Talwar, an accused in the 2008 double murder of her daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj, was jailed on Monday after a district court rejected her interim bail plea.
Additional District Judge S. Lal fixed the hearing on her plea for regular bail for Tuesday.
In his order, Justice Lal said he did not find it feasible to allow the accused to be enlarged on interim bail. “Consequently, the application is rejected.”
Ms. Nupur, who was sitting with her husband and co-accused Rajesh Talwar in a nearby court room of the Special Judicial Magistrate Priti Singh, broke down after hearing the news.
She was immediately escorted by women constables and taken in a police vehicle to the Dasna Jail, where she will spend the night. She will be lodged in barrack number 13 of the district jail where her husband Rajesh had earlier spent 50 days after his arrest in the case.
During the hearing in Justice Singh's court, Ms. Nupur's counsels made a strong pitch for bail, even citing the concept of trinity of Indian mythology — the creator, the protector and the destroyer — to claim that the “creator cannot be the destroyer.”
“Can I kill my own daughter? Is the concept of love of mother wiped out? If the evidence of the CBI is deficient, should I go to jail?... I am the mother of a child who is dead. My husband has already been granted bail. On parity, I should be given bail,” her lawyers led by G.P. Thareja quoted from her statement.
“Whose liberty is being curtailed? The mother's. Look at the evidence... look at the torture she will undergo,” Mr. Thareja said. She should be given interim bail, as summoning order is before the Supreme Court, he said.
A tense Ms. Nupur sat, with her husband Rajesh Talwar and relatives, dressed in yellow salwar suit chanting Hanuman Chalisa.
Ms. Nupur's lawyer said she had always cooperated with the CBI in their probe and had even gone to Gandhinagar in Gujarat for scientific tests.
The CBI strongly opposed the bail plea saying the Talwars created an “emotional” atmosphere before the courts saying their daughter was killed. But it was actually a double murder in which their servant Hemraj was also killed.
CBI public prosecutor R.K. Saini said Ms. Nupur was trying to evade courts. Despite bailable and non-bailable warrants against her, she appeared before the Special Judicial Magistrate only after the Supreme Court directed her to do so. “Their purpose is to go out of the clutch of courts. What is so special in your case that Nupur should not be behind bars?” Mr. Saini said, countering the argument of Ms. Nupur's lawyers.
The CBI said she was not only accused of murder but also of destruction of evidence and, seeing the seriousness of the charges, her plea for concession under section 473 CrPC for a woman should not be entertained.
Earlier in the morning, Ms. Nupur, flanked by her husband Rajesh and relatives, had taken an alternative route to avoid waiting camera crew to reach the court of Justice Singh, who had issued a non-bailable warrant against her, and surrendered. She was immediately remanded in judicial custody by Justice Singh who also rejected her bail plea.
Ms. Nupur's lawyers had sought bail saying that she was a woman and the mother of the victim Aarushi. Besides, her passport had also been submitted to the court.
The court, however, said it did not have the power to decide on the bail plea and she would have to approach the sessions court with the application.
Ms. Nupur's lawyers then rushed to the court of District Judge Bharat Bhushan with the plea to hear her regular bail application or grant her interim bail as the Supreme Court had directed the lower court to decide her bail issue “expeditiously.”
The District Judge, who was recently transferred here, allotted the matter to the Additional District Judge S. Lal, who heard the matter in the evening.
Aarushi was murdered on the intervening night of May 16-17, 2008, at her Noida residence. The next day, the body of domestic help, Hemraj, was found on the terrace of the house.
The Ghaziabad court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Ms. Nupur on April 11, following which the CBI carried out searches at her Delhi premises.
She surrendered on Monday after a Supreme Court bench of justices A.K. Patnaik and J.S. Khehar asked her to approach the trial judge for bail. The bench also turned down her plea for protection against arrest after her surrender.
“We should not anticipate what the trial court is going to do. You appear before it and the court shall consider your bail. If you do not get bail then there are higher courts,” the bench told her.
