"Will you take responsibility if something happens to mother of Vikas Yadav," the Supreme Court asked the Delhi government on Wednesday while hearing an interim bail plea of the Nitish Katara murder case convict.
Yadav, who serving a 25-year jail term in the 2002 murder case, is seeking interim bail to attend his ailing mother.
Indicating that it was inclined to grant interim bail, a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan told Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Delhi government, that it would impose strict restrictions on Yadav.
"This is not done. This man (Yadav) has undergone 23 years in jail. Are we not empowered to grant temporary bail keeping in mind condition of his mother? What is the fault of the mother? Will you take responsibility if something happens to his mother," the bench asked the ASG.
Opposing the bail, Bhati said the convict is a person of huge clout and he has misused his medical bail.
The matter is listed for hearing on April 24.
The top court previously observed that the state had to be fair as it pulled up the Uttar Pradesh and Delhi governments over the delay in constituting a medical board to examine the woman's condition.
It expressed surprise and said despite its April 2 order, it took 10 days to constitute a medical board to examine the condition of his mother, admitted to Yashoda Hospital in Ghaziabad.
Yadav said his mother Umesh was critically ill and hospitalised in the ICU.
The treating doctors, the plea added, advised immediate surgical intervention given her medical condition.
On October 3, 2016, the supreme court sentenced Yadav without any benefit of remission.
He is the son of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav. His cousin Vishal Yadav was also punished for the kidnapping and murder of business executive Katara.
The duo was against Katara's alleged affair with Bharti Yadav, sister of Vikas, as they belonged to different castes.
Another co-convict Sukhdev Pehalwan was given a 20-year jail term without any remission benefit.
Earlier, the Delhi High Court, while upholding the life imprisonment awarded to Vikas and Vishal Yadav by the trial court, specified a 30-year sentence, without any remission, to both of them.
It had awarded a 25-year jail term to the third convict Pehalwan.
The Delhi prisons administration had last year rejected Yadav's remission request after his conduct was found to be unsatisfactory.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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