New Delhi   

Notice to police over taxi drivers’ plea

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued a notice to the Delhi police on appeals by two taxi drivers seeking setting aside of a lower court judgment earlier this month sentencing them to death in the Dawn Emilie Griggs rape-cum-murder case of 2004.

The lower court had held the two -- Jyotish Prasad and Ashish Kumar -- guilty of brutally killing the 59-year-old Australian Dawn Emilie Griggs after criminally assaulting her and robbing her of her belongings.

In their separate appeals, the two convicts argued that they had been framed by the police under pressure to solve the case as soon as possible because a woman foreign national was the victim. They submitted that the trial court had convicted them on the basis of only circumstantial evidence as the investigating agency had failed to collect any direct evidence pertaining to their alleged crime.

“All the circumstances have been proved by the prosecution and lead to irresistible conclusion that the accused subjected the foreigner to gang-rape and killed her after robbing her of valuables,” the trial court had said in its judgment.

Issuing the notice, a Division Bench of the High Court comprising Justice Vikramjit Sen and V.K. Shali asked the police to file replies to the appeals.

Griggs, who had arrived in Delhi from Australia via Hong Kong, was found murdered with stab injuries and her face smashed in a deserted field near Indira Gandhi International Airport on March 17, 2004, hours after she had taken a pre-paid taxi from the airport. She had come to India to get enrolled in a meditation course. Jyotish and Ashish had brutally murdered her and then tried to decamp with her belongings.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Supreme Court ‘no’ to high-rise buildings in Lutyens’ Delhi
On the floor for a noble cause
Exploring borders and conflict zones
Congress ready to consider autonomy
CBI registers case in ‘cash-for-judge’ scam
Centre turns down appeal
Special MCD camp
Two fresh cases of dengue reported
Trains cancelled
Additional stoppages for trains
Road repairs
Cultural shows planned for Games
Delhi BJP sounds election bugle
Excellence pays
Notice to police over taxi drivers’ plea
Court order on bandh not violated, says Karunanidhi
State’s focus on infrastructure, says Karim
Discoms to be held responsible
Central fund for food security mission
Try protesters carrying Pak flags: Rajnath
Knowledge Commission, UGC differ on world-class universities
Demand for classification of OBCs in country

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu