Bengaluru: A local court Monday rejected a plea by Kannada actor Darshan and three other accused in the Renukaswamy murder case, seeking permission to be physically present at every hearing. The court directed them to attend proceedings through videoconference.Besides Darshan, the petitioners were Jagadish (accused no. 6), Anukumar (accused no. 7) and Nagaraj (accused no. 11).Special public prosecutor P Prasanna Kumar told TOI that the court observed that under the videoconferencing rules for courts, the term “court” includes both a physical and virtual court, and the facility can be used at all stages of judicial proceedings.The court also cited the high court’s guidelines in the Abdul Bashir vs NIA case, which directed prison authorities to provide robust videoconferencing facilities to inmates and unrestricted access for defence advocates to interact privately with their clients.The court subsequently rejected the accused’s application.Earlier, on Aug 13, Karnataka high court had dismissed Darshan’s petition challenging a sessions court order that refused to allow him to raise objections to a plea by co-accused Pradosh Rao, who is seeking pardon and permission to turn approver in the case. Darshan, the second accused, had sought the quashing of the Aug 10 order. Rao is the 14th accused in the case.Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed Darshan’s petition after hearing senior advocate Hasmath Pasha, who appeared for the actor, and the SPP.The high court held that a co-accused has no right to make submissions when a court is considering another accused’s application under Section 306 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, seeking pardon and permission to become an approver.
