New Delhi: The hearing in the Parliament attack case on November 22 reached the penultimate stage with a Delhi court asking the defence counsel and prosecution to submit the final written submissions and rejoinder on November 25.

Special judge S N Dhingra will also hear the final arguments by the court appointed counsel for the alleged Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant Mohd Afzal, key conspirator in the case.

Besides, Afzal, other alleged JeM militant Shaukat Hussain Guru, his wife Navjot Sandhu alias Afsan Guru and S A R Geelani, suspended lecturer of a Delhi University College, are facing trial for the December 13 attack on Parliament.

Meanwhile, concluding her arguments, Sima Gulati, counsel for Geealni contended that the confessional statements of the alleged JeM militants recorded under Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) by the police could not be used against her client as proper procedure was not followed.

Prosecution had submitted that the confessional statements of other accused could be used against the co-accused to establish their involvement in the conspiracy.

Geelani had refused to record his confessional statement before the deputy commissioner of police (DCP) while Afzal and Shaukat had voluntarily made the confessional statements under the Act, police had claimed.

However, the counsel said that adequate safeguard under the law was not followed while recording the confessional statements of the accused and the police officer involved in recording the statements had not discharged the duty in a transparent manner.

PTI