Defence lawyer asking irrelevant questions: Uber rape victim's father

New Delhi, March 9: The father of the woman executive allegedly raped by a Uber cab driver said on Monday that his daughter was traumatised due to irrelevant questions being asked by defence counsel in the case. “My daughter is traumatised. The defence counsel of accused are putting irrelevant questions during her cross-examition,” the victim’s father told reporters. Additiol Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja recorded the statement of the woman executive in an in-camera proceeding.

Meanwhile, the victim told the court that she could not attend court proceedings on weekdays due to her job, and requested that cross-examition be conducted on the week-end. The court asked her to move an application in this regard. Her cross-examition is likely to continue on Tuesday.

Testifying as a prosecution witness, the woman was recalled for further cross-examition after Delhi High Court allowed the plea of accused Shiv Kumar Yadav to recall some of the prosecution witnesses, including the victim, for further cross-examition. The victim appeared in the court wearing a black burqa. The high court on last Wednesday had allowed Yadav’s counsel to cross-examine 13 prosecution witnesses, including the woman, again “in the interest of justice”. The court’s order came on Yadav’s plea challenging the trial court’s February 18 order denying him permission to recall the witnesses. The prosecution had on January 31 completed recording of evidence in just 17 days.

According to the police, the woman executive was allegedly raped by 32-year-old Yadav on the night of December 5, 2014, in the cab she had hired to head back home in north Delhi’s Inderlok area. The accused driver took the woman to an isolated place where he raped her. The court had on January 13 framed charges of rape, causing grievous bodily harm and endangering the life of a woman, kidpping a woman, crimil intimidation and voluntarily causing hurt against Yadav under various sections of the Indian Pel Code. (IANS)