Friday, December 9 2005 16:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today (Dec 09, 2005) declined to interfere with the Bombay High Court order lifting the restrictions on the number of police officers to interrogate extradited gangster Abu Salem in a murder case.

A Bench comprising Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P P Naolekar refused to hear arguments on Salem's plea to stay the High Court order and said the matter will be heard in regular course of hearing on January two.

The gangster's counsel Imitiaz Ahmed had mentioned the matter before the Bench for giving it an early hearing with a plea to stay the December 2 order of the High Court.

Salem has challenged the High Court decision quashing the TADA Court order restricting his interrogation only by two officers of Anti-Terrorist Squad of Mumbai Police in Pradeep Jain murder case of 1995.

In the Special Leave Petition, Salem has contended that the High Court erroneously entertained the petition as the appeal against the TADA Court order could only be filed in the Supreme Court. His lawyer said under Section 19 (1) and 19 (2) of TADA, the appeal against the Designated court order could only be placed before the Apex Court.

The TADA court on November 29 had allowed only two officers to interrogate Salem in the case after considering his grievances that he was allegedly being tortured by the ATS officers.