Sheena Bora murder case: May not have call data records of ’12, telecom companies tell court

A day before Sheena’s murder, said Rai, he and Indrani conducted a recce to find a spot to dispose of her body.

In the Sheena Bora murder case, nodal officers of two telecom companies have told the court that they might not have Call Data Records (CDR) of 2012 on their servers as sought by defence advocates. Advocate Gunjan Mangla, representing Indrani Mukerjea, and advocate Shreyansh Mithare, representing Sanjeev Khanna, had sought CDRs of Sheena, Indrani’s former husband Khanna, who is an accused in the case, and Peter Mukerjea’s son from his previous marriage, Rahul Mukerjea.

On Friday, the two nodal officers, who had been summoned last week by the court, submitted in the court that the CDRs called for by the advocates are not available with them on their servers. While the nodal officer of Reliance told the court that they overwrite records stored on their servers after a year, the nodal officer of Airtel submitted that before they delete data from servers, some of those are stored in tapes.

Defence advocate Sudeep Pasbola, representing Indrani, asked the officer how the telecom companies decided which data to store in tapes and which to destroy? Both officers will again appear in court on Tuesday, during the next hearing to make submissions on whether the CDRs are available with them. A third nodal officer from Kolkata, summoned for Khanna’s number, has sought more time to be present before the court.

The defence advocates had earlier pointed out that CDRs for 2012 had been provided by the telecom companies of Sheena’s other number, Indrani, as well as that of accused-turned-approver, Shyamvar Rai, to the investigating agencies in 2015. The alleged murder of Sheena, which took place on April 24, 2012, came to light in 2015 with the arrest of Rai in another case of carrying an illegal weapon.

The CDRs can be used as evidence by defence advocates to prove aspects like location of an accused, witness or victim to point out discrepancies in the prosecution’s claim, especially in cases with circumstantial evidence.

The CBI court has rejected accused Peter Mukerjea’s application seeking case diaries, personal diaries and weekly diaries maintained by officers of Khar police station who had arrested Rai in the illegal weapon case. Advocate Shrikant Shivade, representing Peter, had submitted that the production of the diaries is necessary since prosecution is relying on two of the investigators from Khar as witnesses.

He had submitted that the diaries amount to “previous statements” of the two investigators and can be used to detect contradictions and omissions. The CBI had opposed the application claiming that weekly and personal diaries were only meant for “supervisory authorities” and they only reflected work attended by the officers on that particular day.

The court said it was not possible to accept the contention of the defence that a case diary can be termed as “previous statement” of the investigating officer, while rejecting the application.