Police seek transfer of Mahajan case to special court

NEW DELHI: Delhi police on Sunday challenged the powers of a metropolitan court here to try the drug abuse case against Rahul Mahajan, son of slain BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, and sought its transfer to a special court.

“The metropolitan magistrate has no power to hear this case when a special court designated to hear all matters under the NDPS Act is already in existence,” the Delhi Police said in its application moved before special judge NK Gupta at Tis Hazari complex, seeking transfer of the case to it.

Accepting the application, the special court has directed the police to produce Rahul Mahajan, now lodged in Tihar jail, on Monday morning for further hearing on the application.

This comes after metropolitan magistrate AK Chaturvedi, in whose court the case is being heard at present, had termed “fallacious” the public prosecutor’s argument that it did not have power to hear a bail application in the case.

Further, to counter defence counsel Sunil Mittal’s arguments on the quantity of the drugs found at the residence of Rahul Mahajan on the night of June 1, the prosecution had relied upon fresh charges filed against Rahul under section 27A, NDPS Act, of financing illicit traffic and harbouring offenders.

But, the defence had rebutted that the prosecution was unable to distinguish between financing through a series of transactions and consumption through a single transaction, a contention accepted by the court.

Regarding polygraph, brain-mapping and narcoanalysis tests of Rahul, the metropolitan magistrate had said these could be conducted even when the accused was on bail, and did not require his custody.

However, the court had noted that nothing in this order would be “tantamount to an opinion...having a bearing on the merits of the case and shall be relevant only for the disposal of the present bail application”.

Meanwhile, the police are expected to receive all the CFSL reports, which would give investigators exact information regarding the nature and quality of drugs used.