Mumbai: Media baron Peter Mukerjea, arrested in the Sheena Bora murder case, has filed a second bail plea, saying charges brought against him by the CBI’s were false and the chargesheet doesn't have "reasonable grounds" to hold him guilty.
The application says it was Peter’s wife Indrani, prime accused in the case, who hatched the plan and carried out the murder, calling her “ambitious, calculative and adept at lying”.
Peter’s lawyers have listed nine instances to contend that Sheena’s murder was planned and executed by Indrani alone. Peter has accused Indrani of lying to mislead him.
Mr Mukerjea's lawyer Kushal Mor filed the second bail application in the special court yesterday.
There was no further justification for keeping him in custody as there were no "reasonable grounds" in the chargesheet to believe that "he has been guilty of offences with which he is charged", it said.
The special CBI court in Mumbai had rejected his first bail application in February.
As per the chargesheet, Mr Mukerjea's motive for committing the crime (participating in the conspiracy to murder Sheena) was that he was against the relationship between Ms Bora and his son Rahul Mukerjea.
This was "demonstrably untrue and unsustainable," the application said, citing emails exchanged by Mr Mukerjea and his son in December 2011 which it said proved that Mr Mukerjea was not opposed to Rahul Mukerjea and Sheena Bora's engagement.
The application also said Mr Mukerjea was a senior citizen, suffered from high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and his health would deteriorate if he was kept in jail.
Mr Mukerjea, whose wife Indrani Mukerjea is the prime accused in the case, was arrested on November 19. He is lodged in the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.
Other co-accused, Ms Mukerjea's former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her driver Shyamvar Rai, are in the same jail, while Ms Mukerjea is in the Byculla women's jail.
The trio allegedly strangled Ms Bora (24), Indrani Mukerjea's daughter from an earlier relationship, inside a car in April 2012. The crime came to light last August.
(PTI inputs)
