Speed up my trial, Vijay Palande says

He has been in jail since being charged with 3 murders in 2012; SC has said trials pending for 5 years must be wrapped up by 2017

Around this time five years ago, Vijay Palande was arrested and charged with murdering three people.

The trial in one of those cases is yet to begin, the second has come to a halt, while in the third case, the victim is yet to be identified.

Using a recent Supreme Court direction that asks all session courts to finish trials pending for five years by the end of 2017, Palande has written asking that his case be expedited, while blaming the prosecution for the delay.

Palande was arrested in April 2012 for murdering Delhi businessman Arun Tikku and film producer Karankumar Kakkad. He had earlier jumped parole after being convicted of another double murder and sentenced to life in prison.the probe into the 2012 murders revealed how the two gruesome murders took place, Palande’s past and the people who helped him

Palande was also accused of a third murder — that of an unidentified victim—after the police recovered a skull and bones.

Blaming the prosecution for the delay in the trials, Palande wrote in a two-page application: “I have been in jail for the past five years and the prosecution side is unnecessarily causing delays in conducting the trial without any just reasons.”

The trial in the Tikku murder case for which Palande was first arrested has not even began. In the Kakkad murder case, the trial has been stalled since November 2014, after the prosecution examined the first witness, Rita Kakkad. “The third murder case is still not clear. The police have not yet come up with the identity of the deceased. The forensic reports revealed that of the bones the police allegedly recovered, one is of an animal,” said Palande’s lawyer, Prasant Pandey.

In 2012, the state transferred

(see box).

the cases to fast-track court at Sewri, after which they were transferred to a sessions court. Ever since, none of the cases has progressed. Palande alleged the prosecution failed to provide copies of all documents and evidence to him. “He asked for a consent agreement allegedly signed for a brain-mapping test the crime branch did. It has been a year, the prosecution has not supplied a copy. The court too ordered the crime branch to supply these documents, but the prosecution has been evading complying with the order,” Pandey said. The prosecution, on the other hand, claimed Palande was causing delays by filing frivolous pleas. “Even if there are several pleas, the trial can go on,” Pandey said in reply. In January, the court decided to make a schedule for prosecution to speed up the trials. The prosecution was asked to bring witnesses from February. But the cases were transferred again to another court. After a month, Palande moved a plea for speedy hearing. The court wants the prosecution’s reply.