The accused named Shahrukh Khan was arrested in 2015 in the said case and the same was being tried in the sessions court.
In an unusual case, an NDPS court found that the prosecutor in a Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances case had been a defense lawyer for the same accused when the case was being tried in a sessions court. Accepting the plea by the defense advocate, the NDPS court has now sought a new Public Prosecutor for the case.
The accused named Shahrukh Khan was arrested in 2015 in the said case and the same was being tried in the sessions court. However, as the accused was poor, he was provided lawyer through state legal aid and the current additional public prosecutor Rakesh Tiwari, who was then on the panel, appeared on behalf of the accused.
The charges of NDPS were introduced at a later stage in the same case against Khan. But it was found that Rakesh Tiwari, who had moved the sessions court on behalf of the accused seeking witnesses to be testified, was now prosecutor in the NDPS case against Khan.
Advocate Sartaj Shaikh, who is now the defence counsel for Khan, pointed to the court on Wednesday that Tiwari should have recused himself from this case, considering that he had been Khan’s lawyer in the sessions court. He also told the court that the prosecution deliberately tried to waste the precious time of the court.
Ideally in the interest of justice the advocate had to recuse himself before appearing as a prosecutor, claimed advocate Shaikh.
“Instead of recusing, on Wednesday, Tiwari filed an application seeking for framing of additional charges against the accused, who is already charged under the NDPS act. When I was filing a reply to the prosecution’s application, and when I checked with the court’s roznama, when I realised that he was appearing on behalf of the accused as an advocate from the legal panel. Thus we raised this point before the court and also filed an application before the court to take appropriate action against the prosecutor,” Shaikh said.
Tiwari, in his reply to the court accepted he had appeared as defense lawyer for Khan in criminal case and was now a prosecutor in NDPS court. He also left it to the court to decide if he should continue as PP in the case.
The court presided by judge R K Malabade, thus has asked the Chief public prosecutor to appoint a new prosecutor in the case.
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