New Delhi, Dec 2 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Tuesday issued notice to the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh governments over a plea from Vikas and Vishal Yadav who have challenged their conviction in the 2002 murder of Nitish Katara.A division bench of Justices Anil Kumar and V.K. Shali asked the governments of the two states to reply by Jan 27, the next date of hearing.

A city court in June awarded Vikas Yadav and his cousin Vishal life sentence for killing Katara, son of an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer.

They killed Katara as they were against their sister Bharti’s intimate relations with him, according to the prosecution.

The two Yadav cousins kidnapped Katara on the intervening night of Feb 16-17, 2002, from a marriage ceremony in Ghaziabad and killed him.

The Yadavs contended in their appeal that the trial court had wrongly held them guilty for the murder, despite the fact that there was no direct evidence against them.

Alleging that the trial judge ignored certain facts in the case, Vikas said the court relied upon the deposition of key witness Ajay Katara despite the fact that he had his own interests in the matter.

Vikas in his appeal also stated that the crime-related articles, including the wrist watch and the recovered murder weapon, were planted by the prosecution.