New Delhi, Mar 22 (IANS): Tihar Jail authorities Friday informed the Delhi High Court that Vishal and Vikas Yadav, convicted in Nitish Katara murder case, will not be shifted from it to a prison in their home state.
A division bench of Chief Justice Geeta Mittal and J.R. Midha disposed of the plea after advocate Dayan Krishnan, appearing for the jail authority, said he had taken "telephonic instruction from Sunil Gupta, law officer, Central Jail Tihar, who said that till the judgment is not pronounced in the case, there is no question to transfer Vishal and Vikas Yadav from Tihar jail".
The mother of the murdered youth Nitish has moved the court against the state government's decision to transfer some convicts, including those sentenced for her son's killing, from the Tihar jail.
Katara, in her plea had said that as per media reports, the Delhi government's home department has written a letter to home secretaries of states for transfer of convicts, lodged in Tihar Jail, to their own states.
A letter was sent to the Haryana home secretary seeking transfer of 55 convicts in the teachers' recruitment scam to a jail in their state, and a similar letter was written to Uttar Pradesh home secretary for Vikas and Vishal Yadav, serving life sentence in Tihar for killing Katara.
The Delhi government made the requests to the two states on recommendation of the Tihar Jail authorities, the reports said, to reduce the number of inmates in the "overcrowded" jail.
It was pleaded that the Supreme Court had transferred the Nitish Katara murder case from Ghaziabad to Delhi on the grounds that Vikas Yadav's father D.P. Yadav is a very influential person and there is an immense threat to the witnesses.
She further said that the high court is hearing the appeal filed by both convicts against the trial court order that awarded life term to them, as well as the appeal by police seeking enhancement of sentence.
Vikas and Vishal killed Katara on the night of Feb 17, 2002 after abducting him from a marriage party in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad.
The trial court sentenced Vikas and Vishal to life imprisonment in May 2008.