New Delhi, April 24: The Supreme Court on Thursday granted interim bail till May 8 to convict Vikas Yadav, serving a 25-year jail term in the 2002 Nitish Katara murder case, to meet his ailing mother. A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan directed Yadav's mother to be examined by a medical board of AIIMS doctors.

Imposing conditions, the top court directed the convict to remain confined to his house in Ghaziabad and not get in touch with the case's witnesses, including Katara's mother Neelam Katara. The apex court granted him the relief subject to depositing a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh and a surety of the like amount. Vikas 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. ‘We Are Alleged of Encroaching Upon Parliamentary, Executive Functions’: Supreme Court’s Justice BR Gavai While Hearing Matter on Murshidabad Violence.

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.