Court acquits 2 men charged with kidnapping Neera Radia's son in 2003

New Delhi: A local court here acquitted two men accused of abducting controversial corporate lobbyist Neera Radia's son, then 18, more than two decades ago.

Dheeraj Singh and Vijay Kumar, both accused of kidnapping, were acquitted by Additional Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey over the prosecution's failure to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Dheeraj is a distant relative of Gurugram Lok Sabha MP Rao Inderjit Singh and a former associate of Radia.

According to the prosecution, Dheeraj, along with Vijay, kidnapped Karan Radia for ransom from south Delhi's Vasant Vihar on April 26, 2003, and took him to his ancestral palace in Rewari, from where he later escaped.

"Court is of the considered view that prosecution has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt regarding the charge of offences … Accordingly, accused are acquitted …," the court's 200-page judgement, dated October 16, said.

The court noted that Dheeraj knew Karan already and had a "close relation" with his mother as well as had a business dispute with her.

Perplexed that no complaint was made in the case, the court said, "It is admitted fact that after the incident, no formal complaint was lodged with the local police station and it came on record that the present case was investigated by the officials of the crime branch without any formal order of the investigation." The court said it was not clear on what basis and on whose instructions the investigating officer (IO), Inspector Rajeev Kumar, conducted the probe.

It said that the raiding team, which arrested the two men, did not follow the legal procedure of arrest, nor gave a formal communication to the local police station in Gurugram or Rewari.

So the manner and mode of arrest of the accused persons was "doubtful," the court said.

It said that the recovery of the victim's mobile phone and wristwatch were also doubtful as two prosecution witnesses — an STD booth owner and a taxi driver — who the victim met after his escape testified that Karan had a mobile phone and was wearing a watch.

There were also several doubts about Karan's version of how he was abducted and subsequently escaped from captivity after which he made a phone call from a booth, the court said.

There were no records either to prove that the phone booth was functioning and the victim made a call to his aunt. "It remained unproved that any ransom call was made to the mother of the victim by any person." It also said the testimonies of Neera Radia and Karan's aunt Karuna Menon were based on what Karan told them.

"Their testimonies are mere hearsay for want of corroboration from the independent record of call detail record (CDR) of the call allegedly made to Neera Radia by the ransom caller or for want of CDR of the call allegedly made by the victim to her aunt," the court said.

The charge-sheet in the case was filed by Vasant Vihar Police Station.