Nitish Katara murder case: Accused manipulated hospital visits to stay out of jail, says court

New Delhi: Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal “manipulated” hospital visits “to procure outings from jail” which “manifests a lack of remorse or regret”, Delhi High Court said on Friday while awarding them an enhanced life term of 30 years each. [caption id=“attachment_2084443” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Vikas Yadav was awarded life term in the Nitish Katara murder case.[/caption] A bench of justices Gita Mittal and JR Midha said the two convicts “utilised the shield of hospital visits” in connivance with jail authorities as well as the doctors who were treating them, to “avoid undergoing the imprisonment” awarded to them. “It is therefore, obvious that Vikas Yadav and Vishal Yadav have utilized the shield of the hospital visits and stays in connivance with jail authorities as well as doctors at the hospital which they visited or were admitted to. “They manipulated the systems deliberately and knowingly with impunity without any respect for law or authority, sure and confident that their unholy and illegal acts would go undetected and they could avoid undergoing the imprisonment awarded to them, in any sense,” the bench said. The court also took note of the Rs 20,77,721 “burden borne by the taxpayer” on the security provided to the two during their visits to hospitals, and said the “figures are no measure of the colossal waste of valuable manpower and scarce human resources as the police personnel are constantly required for discharging critical policing duties.” It also took note of the treatment provided to them during their numerous visits - 98 for Vikas and 105 for Vishal - as well as the medication prescribed and said it did not appear that either of them were afflicted by the ailments for which they were taken to hospital. It also said that none of the ailments, including tuberculosis, which the two convicts claimed to have suffered during the incarceration, required them to be taken to tertiary health care centres like AIIMS and Batra when the same could be provided in the prison or nearby Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. The court also said, “Judicial notice requires to be taken of the long line of critically ill patients waiting to be admitted to the AIIMS for treatment in any ward. And yet a healthy prisoner has been permitted to occupy and room for twenty six days thereby enabling him to avoid the prison.” Referring to their numerous hospital visits and stays, the court said, “There is no record of any treatment being administered which had to be monitored at these times.” “Clearly, the admissions were to keep the convicts out of jail in the company of wife/relatives, with access to visitors, telephone facilities, home cooking with facilities as in the nature of private room, private bathroom, air conditioning, etc. similar to those they would have enjoyed at home. It was certainly not the regimented lifestyle which the jail stay entails,” the court said. It also said, “The facilities enjoyed in private rooms are certainly way beyond those available even in the general wards of the Batra Hospital or AIIMS. “The facilities which were made available to these two defendants in these hospitals can bear no comparison to those which are provided in the general ward in government hospitals which other prisoners would have got.” The bench observed that, “In the jail, the prisoners do not have access to telephone facilities or the benefit of air conditioning or personalized bathroom and private toilet facilities” and said, “Both these convicts have had prolonged stays outside the regimentation and discipline of the jail. Such stays were as per their whim and desire.” The court also noted that the conduct of jail authorities in paying for deluxe rooms for the convicts “reeks of the collusion” with the prisoners to enable their stay in comfort outside of jail and asked, “Why should this be permitted at the cost of the public exchequer? Especially, if treatment or medicare of the person does not require so?” “And if the same is warranted, why should not such facility be made available to every prisoner, irrespective of his/her economic/social/political standing or position as the right to life guaranteed under our Constitution…?” The court also asked. It has advised hospitals “to take special care in this regard where treatment of prisoners is concerned inasmuch as the expenses are borne by the public exchequer.” “Furthermore unless, the concerned and competent security agency or the prison authority has verified and recommended special facilities because of the nature of disease or some special security concerns of a prisoner, all prisoners would be entitled to the same treatment,” it added. It also said that hospital visits and admissions of Vishal Yadav post conviction were also without permission from the concerned court or from any authority. “No referral from any jail doctor for the visits or admissions is also forthcoming,” it noted in the 594-page judgment. The court said there is substance in the submission of Nitish’s mother and the prosecution that Vishal and Vikas Yadav actively manipulated authority, connived with jail authorities and the doctors at the Batra Hospital to keep themselves out of jail and away from undergoing the sentence of life sentence on “false pretexts” of medical treatment. PTI