Cases filed against Shayan Munshi, Manocha
Cases have been filed before a city court seeking prosecution of model-actor Shayan Munshi and ballistic expert Prem Kumar Manocha for allegedly resiling as prosecution witnesses in the sensational Jessica Lall murder case of 1999.
The Delhi high court had ordered prosecution of witnesses Munshi and Manocha, following which two complaints have been registered against the duo by the high court registrar before chief metropolitan magistrate Vidya Prakash.
Munshi and Manocha are accused of lying on oath during trial before the sessions court and introducing the “two-gun theory”, which was the primary defence taken by the convicts.
The complaint said that while Munshi was legally bound to state the truth, he intentionally gave false statement for trying to shield the accused from punishment and as such is liable to be punished under Section 193 IPC”.
“This change was to clearly align himself with a defence taken by accused in trial that there were two persons with firearms and that the two shots had been fired from separate firearms,” the complaint said, adding: “The evidence of accused Shayan Munshi was on a material and critical position of the case.”
Munshi was at the bar counter when Lall was shot dead by Manu Sharma, son of Haryana Congress leader Venod Sharma after she refused to serve him a drink.
It was on his statement describing Sharma and the incident that police had lodged an FIR but he later retracted as he deposed in the court that the shot that hit Lall was actually fired by some other person.
The complaint said the trial court had acquitted the accused saying from statements of Munshi and Manocha it cannot be said that the two shots were fired from the same firearm.
As regards Manocha, who was the deputy director, State Forensic Science Laboratory, Rajasthan, the complaint said that he also changed his stance to “align himself” with the defence stance taken by the accused, whose acquittal by the trial court was later set aside by the high court.
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