Shraddha Walkar murder: Can new video conferencing rules speed up trial?

In its June 1 order, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi of Saket Court dismissed the applications while providing it “liberty to move appropriate applications afresh” under Electronic Evidence and Video Conferencing (EE-VC) Rules, 2025, in accordance with law. These had come into effect on July 7, 2025.

The arguments

Arguing for the state, Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Madhukar Pandey pointed out the practical difficulties of securing these international witnesses physically.

The SPP submitted before court that the applications had been pending for over a year and these may be allowed, as summoning all five nodal officers and asking them to remain present physically and record their statements would cause immense delay in the conclusion of trial.

Defence counsel Akshay Bhandari submitted that under the VC Rules, 2021, the consent of the opposite party is mandatory, irrespective of who moves the application to record a witness’s statement via video conferencing.

This issue was finally decided by a Delhi court on June 1.

What the court said

The court noted that there had been a “tectonic shift” in VC rules, referring to the EE-VC Rules, 2025.

It said there is a key difference between the 2021 and 2025 Rules about consent of the accused.

“In the VC Rules, 2021 there was an explicit safeguard stating that before the Court uses its discretion to examine an overseas witness via video conference in a criminal case, it will obtain consent of the accused… Whereas, in the EE-VC Rules, 2025, the explicit requirement… has been removed…,” ASJ Jaggi said.

“In the present case… the State had moved two applications seeking permission to examine witnesses prior to the publication of the EE-VC Rules, 2025, and the third application post-publication… on 10.07.2025 by when the VC Rules 2021 had already been repealed,” the court said.

The case

As per the 6,629-page chargesheet filed by the Delhi Police in the case, Walkar was allegedly strangled to death by Poonawala on May 18, 2022, in South Delhi’s Mehrauli area. The matter came to light months later after Walkar’s father lodged a missing person’s report in Mumbai leading to the arrest of Poonawala in Delhi in November.

Poonawala had allegedly chopped the body into multiple pieces and discarded them in the forest. Police claimed he stepped out around 1-2 am to dispose of the body parts, over two-three months.

The Delhi Police earlier said they recovered a total of 12-13 bones from the Mehrauli forest which matched the DNA samples of the woman’s father.

The case is currently at the stage of prosecution evidence; there are around 220 witnesses in total. After examination of all witnesses is complete, the case will move on to final arguments before the trial is concluded.