Katara murder case convict Vishal Yadav denied bail

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to grant bail to Vishal Yadav, who along with his cousin Vikas, is serving life term for killing Nitish Katara in 2002.

A bench of justices B S Chauhan and T S Thakur, however, asked the Delhi high court to decide expeditiously the appeals filed by Vishal and his cousin Vikas challenging their conviction and sentencing by the trial court for killing Katara as they resented his relationship with their sister Bharti.

The court passed the order on Vishal's appeal challenging the February 24 order of the high court which had refused him the bail.

The nephew of controversial Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav, Vishal had moved the apex court on November 11 seeking bail on health grounds.

He had also submitted in his bail plea that there was no "direct evidence" against him and the lower court had convicted him merely on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

The high court had rejected Vishal's plea to suspend his sentence till the court decides on his appeal filed in 2008 after he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a lower court.

The bench had earlier rejected Vishal's argument that he has been in jail for more than five years and the high court itself had granted him bail for two and half years during the trial and during that period he had shown good conduct.

The trial court had sentenced Vishal and Vikas to life imprisonment in May 2008 for kidnapping Katara on intervening night of February 16-17, 2002, from a marriage party in Ghaziabad and killing him as they resented their sister Bharti Yadav's relationship with him.