The Supreme Court has decided to hear in open court a petition filed by Nupur Talwar — mother of Aarushi Talwar — seeking a review of its January 6 order upholding the trial court's order that had rejected the closure report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation and, taking cognisance of the charge sheet, had issued summons for the appearance of the Talwar couple.
A Bench of Justices A.K. Ganguly (since retired) and J.S. Khehar dismissed an appeal filed by Dr. Nupur Talwar against an order of the Allahabad High Court upholding the order of the trial court taking cognisance of the case after rejecting the protest petition filed by them.
The 14-year-old Aarushi, the only daughter of the Talwars, was found dead with her throat slit at the family's Noida residence on the outskirts of Delhi on May 16, 2008, and the body of their domestic help, Hemraj, was found on the terrace the next day. Refusing to accept the closure report filed by the CBI in December 2010, the trial court took cognisance of the case. Aggrieved, Dr. Nupur challenged the order before the High Court, which on March 18, 2011, dismissed her plea. On January 6, the Supreme Court upheld this order. The review petition is directed against this order.
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In her review petition, Dr. Nupur said the DNA of Hemraj was found in the house of Krishna, the other domestic help, in the bed-sheet seized by the police and later given to the CBI. She said this would show that Krishna had come in contact with Hemraj before the murders took place.
She pointed out that on the clothes worn by her and her husband Rajesh Talwar on the night of the murder only the DNA of their daughter Aarushi could be found and not that of Hemraj. None of these findings of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory were considered by any court, she said, and urged the Supreme Court to consider her plea for DNA mapping. She wanted the review petition to be heard in open court. Normally review petitions are heard in the Judge's chamber through circulation without the participation of lawyers.
A Bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said in its order: “This is an application for review of the judgment and order dated January 6 along with an application for oral hearing under Order XL Rule 3 of the Supreme Court Rules, 1966. Order XL Rule 3 of Part VIII of the Supreme Court Rules, 1966 says, ‘An application for review shall be disposed of by circulation without any oral arguments, but the petitioner may supplement his petition by additional written arguments. The Court may either dismiss the petition or direct notice to the opposite party. An application for review shall, as far as practicable, be circulated to the same Judge or Bench of Judges that delivered the judgment or order sought to be reviewed'.”
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In this case, the Bench said: “The Court is of the opinion that it should hear the oral arguments before passing any order on the application for review. Hence, the Registry is directed to list this matter before the Court for hearing.”