Uber case: cops ‘hand-in-glove’ with prosecution, claims accused Shiv Kumar Yadav

New Delhi: The Uber cab driver Shiv Kumar Yadav, accused of raping a 25-year-old woman executive, said before the court that the Delhi Police were making a deliberate attempt to ensure his conviction.

Claiming that the Delhi police are “hand-in-gloves” with the prosecution, Yadav said that there were several loopholes in the probe conducted in the case.

Continuing his final arguments before Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja, the defence counsel said, "the way investigation has been conducted shows that the investigating agency and the prosecution are hand-in-glove to assure accused's conviction."

Read: Uber rape case: Evidence shows woman raped by cab driver, police tells court

Defending his point, Yadav's counsel D K Mishra argued that several questions were unanswered including dropping of the victim's fiancée from the list of prosecution witnesses by the police.

"The girl's fiancee is a connecting witness to her mobile number. He is the one who gave the number to the police after which the call detail record was taken out. Why is his name not in the list of witnesses? Since he is not a witness, how do we verify if the number provided by him is not fake?" he said.

The counsel further said the SIM card of the girl's mobile number was not given to the police, which showed that the investigating agency was trying to "suppress the facts of the case".

Read: Uber cab rape case: Driver alleges sham trial, threatens media

Asked by the judge what was the relevance of the SIM card in the case, the counsel said it was significant as it contained details of the messages sent by the woman after the alleged incident.

"The SIM card used by the girl was not given to police. It would have the messages of the woman disclosing about the incident. How do we retrieve the content of the messages? This is being hidden to suppress the facts," he said.

The counsel also raised questions on the time of booking the cab and time of informing the police about the incident.

He said that as per her first statement to the police, the girl claimed that she boarded the cab at 9.30 pm but later, in her statement before a metropolitan magistrate, she claimed to have booked the cab after 10pm and boarded the same around 11 pm.

The counsel also said the PCR call details revealed that the girl had made the first call to the police at 1.09 am and the police reached her over an hour later.

"However, the girl in her statement had said that police came to her within 15-20 minutes of making the call, which was contradictory to the document on record," the counsel said.

According to the prosecution, the incident took place on the night of December 5 last year when the victim, who was working for a finance company in Gurgaon, was heading back home.

She had taken the taxi from Vasant Vihar to go to her house in Inderlok and the accused, after taking another route, raped her. Yadav was arrested on December 7 from Mathura in a joint operation by Delhi and Uttar Pradesh police.

The court had on January 13 framed charges against Yadav under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for alleged offences of endangering a woman's life while raping her, abducting with an intent to compel her for marriage, criminally intimidating and causing hurt.

The trial in the case had commenced on January 15 and the prosecution concluded recording its evidence in 17 days by examining 28 witnesses. The accused had not examined any witness in his defence.

During recording of her statement in the court, the victim had identified Yadav as the one who had raped her.

The court had also recorded the testimony of the accused in which he termed the charge against him as "false".

If convicted in the case, Yadav faces a maximum of life imprisonment as punishment.