New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that the state has to be fair, while pulling up governments of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, in connection with the delay in constituting a medical board to examine the condition of the mother of Vikas Yadav, who is serving a 25-year jail term in the 2002 in the Nitish Katara murder case. Yadav moved the apex court seeking interim bail to attend to his ailing mother.
The matter came up before a bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan. During the hearing, the bench said that despite its April 2 order, the concerned authority took 10 days to constitute a medical board to examine the condition of Yadav’s mother. She was admitted to the Yashoda Hospital in Ghaziabad. "You took 10 days to constitute a medical board. There needs to be some explanation...... The state may have something against the petitioner, but the state has to be fair," the bench observed.
The bench noted that by the time the medical board visited, Yadav's mother was discharged from the hospital. A counsel, representing Yadav, contended before the bench that his client’s mother was admitted to the hospital again on Monday, and his mother's condition had deteriorated in February, as he placed on record her medical documents. The bench directed that a fresh medical board be constituted by the medical superintendent of AIIMS, and assessment be done immediately, and a report be submitted.
Yadav, in his interim bail plea, said his mother was critically ill and hospitalised in the ICU. The apex court on October 3, 2016, had sentenced Yadav, who is the son of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav, without any benefit of remission. His cousin Vishal Yadav was also punished for the kidnapping and murder of business executive Katara. The duo was against Katara's alleged affair with Bharti Yadav, sister of Vikas, as they belonged to different castes.
