Rai must be cross examined first: Defence to CBI

Mumbai: The defence in the April 2012 Sheena Bora murder case on Tuesday req-uested the court to defer the cross-examination of the first witness till accused-turned-approver Shyamwar Rai is examined as witness.

The court has asked the CBI to file its reply on this application by July 17, the next date of hearing on the case.

In the meantime, the witness, a police officer told the court that after the investigation he has come to a conclusion that Indrani, Khanna and Rai had allegedly conspired and killed Sheena Bora and hence he had filed an FIR on her murder.

Special CBI counsel Bharat Badami and Kavita Patil on Tuesday completed the examination of the police sub-inspector Ganesh Dalvi as the first witness in the  murder case. Following this, the defence lawyers of the accused, Indrani Mukerjea, her husband Peter Mukerjea and former husband Sanjeev Khanna were supposed to cross-examine this witness. However, they made an application before the CBI judge J C Jagdale requesting the court to defer cross-examination of this witness till accused-turned-approver Shyamwar Rai is examined in the case.

The judge has asked the CBI to file its reply on the application and adjou-rned the hearing until July 17.