J Dey murder case: Police goof-up may help accused get bail

The Bombay high court on Tuesday crucified the prosecutionrsquos hamfisted style of gleaning evidence against the assassins of MiD DAYrsquos special investigations editor J Dey The judge hauled the prosecution over the coals for not procuring vital call records that would have established the conspiratorial link between gangster Chhota Rajan and his Indian lieutenants accused respectively of orchestrating and executing the daylight assassination on June 11 2011 The court was hearing the bail application of Deepak Sisodiya who is accused of supplying bullets to Deyrsquos shooter J Dey was gunned down on June 11 2011 by four gunmen on the orders given by Chhota Rajan lsquoRagtag chargesheetrsquo When Justice RC Chavan was told that the records of any calls exchanged between the accused had been wiped away by the service provider after a year as is the norm he said ldquoYou recorded the statement in March The call records were of 2011 You had plenty of time Shouldnrsquot this have occurred to the investigating officer Is any action being taken against the officerrdquo Journalists march to Mantralaya in a show of protest on June 13 2011 two days after senior journalist J Dey was gunned down in Powai File pic The judge said the point about gathering call records struck him immediately after he saw the documents for the very first time and should have dawned on the police as well He excoriated the shoddy probe further saying ldquoThis has perhaps been done to aid the accused If so then God save this country You have prepared a ragtag chargesheet for public consumption They are happy But after a few years there are few convictionsrdquo Defence pumped up Sisodiya is alleged to have provided the bullets used by shooter Satish Kalia to murder Dey The lower court rejected his bail in February last year According to Sisodiyarsquos lawyers the only evidence against him is his own statement Appearing on his behalf senior advocate Shirish Gupte said that in light of recent judgments the understanding of a criminal conspiracy had changed thereby entitling his client to bail Speaking on Sisodiyarsquos behalf he said ldquoYou must specify knowledge of conspiracy otherwise it is a risky charge I had no knowledge what the cartridge supplied by me Sisodiya was going to be used forhellip Sisodiya had no concern with the victimrdquo Advocates Nitin Sejpal and Pooja Bhojne also represent Sisodiya Gupte added that Sisodiyarsquos role in the murder conspiracy was even smaller than that of journalist Jigna Vora who was recently granted bail after being accused of providing Deyrsquos licence plate number and his address to Rajan Additional Public Prosecutor AS Gadkari told the court that two of the accused Rajan and Nepalese national Nayansingh Bisht were still absconding Clinching testimony The prosecution also referred to a phone number registered in the name of one of Kaliarsquos female relatives through which he allegedly kept in touch with Sisodiya and Rajan But police had not verified from other dialled numbers whether Kalia was indeed using the phone Until the kinrsquos statement was recorded in March 2012 the evidence linking Sisodiya Rajan and Kalia was frail Now it hinged very much on her statement leading the judge to even ask the prosecution how it would carry on in case the witness turned hostile Incidentally her statement was recorded after Sisodiya applied for a bail plea in the MCOCA court and before it was rejected The bail hearings for Sisodiya and Rajanrsquos lsquofinancierrsquo Paulson Joseph will continue on Thursday J Dey murder accused In jail Deepak Sisodiya Rohit Thangappanu00a0alias Satish Kalia Arun Dhake Sachin Gaikwad Nilesh Shelge alias Babloo Mangesh Agawane Abhijeet Shinde Paulson Joseph Anil Waghmode On bail Jigna Vora Vinod Asrani On the run Chhota Rajan Nayansingh Bisht Flashback On June 11 2011 MiD DAYrsquos special investigations editor Jyotirmoy Dey was shot dead near his residence in Powai by four bikeborne men in the broad light of the day while the crime beat veteran was on his way home on his motorcycle He sustained nine exit wounds The highprofile murder had set off drawnout protests to demand more safety for scribes and a speedy CBI probe to nail Deyrsquos slaughterers The furore led the Mumbai Crime Branch to claim over a fortnight later that they had cracked the case In the course of time 13 people were accused of whom 11 were arrested and two subsequently managed to secure bail