Supreme Court relief for Talwars in Aarushi murder case

The Supreme Court today stayed the criminal proceedings against dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the case relating to the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj in 2008.

The court also asked the couple to surrender their passports before the trial court by Monday.

A bench of Justice B Sudershan Reddy and Justice SS Nijjar stayed all the proceedings relating to the summoning of Talwar couple and bailable warrants issued against them by a Ghaziabad court.

Earlier in the day, the Talwars approached the apex court seeking stay of criminal proceedings against them in the case and challenging the order of the Allahabad high court which refused to stay the proceedings before a special CBI court in Ghaziabad in the case.

The Allahabad high court had yesterday dismissed their plea seeking quashing of the proceedings initiated by the lower court which not only refused the closure report of CBI but also summoned them as accused in the case.

The high court had said that it cannot prohibit the magistrate from taking cognisance of a case if prima facie it appears that there is sufficient evidence against a person.

The high court had asked Nupur, who submitted she had been summoned despite never having been called for interrogation or having been named as an accused in CBI's closure report, to appear before the trial court within two weeks.

Another petition filed by Rajesh Talwar challenging bailable warrants issued by the Ghaziabad court on February 28 was dismissed by Justice Ravindra Singh.

On February 9, the Ghaziabad court had issued bailable warrants against the couple for their failure to appear before the court and to initiate proceedings against them after it had named them as accused while rejecting the closure report of CBI, which was treated as the chargesheet.

Fourteen-year-old Aarushi was found murdered at the Talwars's residence in Noida in May 16, 2008, and Hemraj's body was recovered the following day from the same building.