New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday granted custody parole to Sukhdev Yadav alias Pehalwan, serving a 20-year jail term without remission for the murder of business executive Nitish Katara in 2002, to attend the marriage of his daughter.
Justice Anu Malhotra allowed Pehalwan to go to Kushinagar to attend his daughter’s wedding, scheduled on December 6, and other related functions in custody parole for five days.
The high court directed the jail personnel to take him to his native place where the marriage is scheduled and to bring him back on expiry of custody parole.
Pehalwan had urged the court to release him on parole.
However, the court said the allegations of animosity alleged by the witness cannot be ignored and did not grant him that relief.
Advocate Kanhaiya Singhal, representing Pehalwan, said he has challenged the Delhi government’s Home Department order rejecting his application for grant of parole.
He said the convict was earlier also granted parole in 2019 for the purpose of making arrangements for fixing daughter’s marriage and he had not misused the liberty.
The counsel for State and Nitish Katara’s mother Nilam Katara opposed the parole plea saying Pehalwan has already been granted the relief for making arrangements for his daughter’s marriage and if at all the court wanted to consider, he should be granted only custody parole.
Eye witness in the case, Ajay Katara, also opposed the plea saying in November, his wife was attacked and he has been implicated in 24 criminal cases, including gangrape and molestation, allegedly at the behest of father of convict Vikas Yadav and politician D P Yadav’s gang.