Inside Central Jail No. 3 at Tihar Jail in New Delhi, an undertrial prisoner sits at a metal desk preparing for his final postgraduate examinations in sociology. Aaftab Amin Poonawala, the man accused of strangling, dismembering, and scattering the remains of his live-in partner, Shraddha Walkar, has spent his years in custody cultivating his academic credentials. Meanwhile, more than a thousand kilometers away in the coastal town of Vasai, Maharashtra, a family home sits in quiet, unresolved mourning.

The trial of Aftab Poonawala has become an indictment of the Indian criminal justice system's capacity to deliver swift closure. Marked by more than 215 hearings, a voluminous chargesheet exceeding 13,000 pages, and repeated procedural delays, the case highlights how the legal rights of the accused can inadvertently prolong the agony of the victims. This investigation traces the timeline of the Walkar case from its current judicial bottleneck back to its tragic origins, mapping the human toll of a system where justice is too often deferred.

July 2026: The Exemption and the Rescheduled Evidence

The tension surrounding the pace of the trial flared into public view on July 8, 2026, when Additional Sessions Judge Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi of the Saket District Courts accepted an application from Poonawala. The accused sought an exemption from physical production in court on July 20, 2026, a date originally earmarked for the commencement of day-to-day prosecution evidence. The reason for the exemption was Poonawala’s final Master of Arts (Sociology) examination, administered by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) at an exam center located within Tihar Jail.

The court cancelled the July 20 hearing, ordering the recording of evidence to resume on July 21, 2026. While the postponement was only twenty-four hours, the decision reignited fierce criticism of what observers describe as a pattern of tactical delays. Rajat Shukla, a close friend of Shraddha Walkar, expressed the family’s collective exhaustion to reporters:

"We must remember that Aftab is the same person who cut her body into 35 pieces so brutally. He still hasn't been hanged. Four years have passed since this happened. It's a great pity that Saket Court or any other court should show him any mercy. If mercy is to be shown, then you should show some mercy to the few remaining members of Shraddha's family. Shraddha hasn't been cremated yet. Her body hasn't been returned yet, which is why her last rites haven't been performed."

The court’s deferral was not an isolated accommodation. Ten months prior, proceedings were postponed to accommodate Poonawala’s dental check-up. On another occasion, the trial paused for a psychiatric consultation. To the victim's family, these repeated allowances under the guise of prisoner rights feel like a manipulation of the legal machinery.

The prosecution's current workload highlights the complexity of the trial. There are still eight prosecution witnesses left to be examined, and the chief examination of thirteen witnesses has only been partly recorded, while the testimony of twelve others was previously deferred.

May 2026: The Bid for Day-to-Day Hearings and Digital Witnesses

Prior to the July exam controversy, the Saket District Court made a concerted effort to break the legal deadlock. On May 29, 2026, Additional Sessions Judge Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi ordered that the trial proceed on a strict "day-to-day" basis starting July 20, 2026, to expedite the recording of prosecution evidence.

During these proceedings, Special Public Prosecutor Madhukar Pandey moved several critical applications under Rule 6 of the Delhi High Court Video Conferencing Rules, 2021. The prosecution sought permission to examine key technical witnesses via video link, including nodal officers from multinational technology platforms: Google, Bumble, WhatsApp, Meta Platforms, and Hopper (USA).

These digital witnesses are considered vital to proving the digital trail Poonawala allegedly created to conceal the murder. Although Poonawala's defense counsel declined to reply to these applications, the court overruled preliminary objections and approved the video conferencing format, ordering that the cross-examination of Head Constable Deepak (PW-125) be scheduled for July 27, 2026.

February 2025: The Death of a Campaigning Father

The true cost of these systemic delays is measured in human heartbreak. On Sunday morning, February 9, 2025, Vikas Walkar, Shraddha’s father, died of a sudden cardiac arrest at his home in Vasai, Maharashtra. He was fifty-nine. For over two years, Vikas had spent his dwindling energy and savings traveling between Mumbai and Delhi, sitting quietly in the back of the Saket courtrooms, waiting for his daughter’s killer to face a verdict.

Vikas Walkar died in deep depression. His final years were defined by a desperate campaign to secure his daughter's skeletal remains from the custody of the Delhi Police. Under Hindu customs, the soul cannot find peace without the performance of final rites, yet the law required the physical evidence to remain intact and available for the trial. Vikas had threatened to launch an indefinite hunger strike on the streets of Delhi if her bones were not returned to him. He passed away with that final fatherly duty unfulfilled.

November 2024: High-Security Ward 4 and the Lawrence Bishnoi Hit List

By late 2024, the trial was further complicated by security challenges within the Indian prison system. On November 16, 2024, interrogations of Shivkumar Gautam (alias Shiva), the primary shooter arrested for the murder of Nationalist Congress Party leader Baba Siddique, revealed a startling security threat. Gautam confessed that Poonawala had been placed on the active hit list of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.

According to intelligence reports, the gang targeted Poonawala due to the communal anger generated by the dismemberment of a Hindu woman. Tihar Jail authorities were forced to place Poonawala under high-security isolation within Ward 4, enforcing 24-hour CCTV surveillance and restricted movement. This security shift turned the simple act of transporting Poonawala to court into a complex, high-risk logistics operation, adding another layer of delay to the physical hearings.

August 2024: A Legacy Established in Grief

Before his death, Vikas sought to channel his grief into a shield for others. On August 18, 2024, alongside legal advocate Seema Kushwaha, he established the Shraddha Walkar Charitable Trust in Vasai.

The trust was designed to educate young women about domestic violence, provide legal counseling, and offer intervention resources for those trapped in abusive relationships. His death left his sister, Rajal Naik, to carry the mantle of their legal fight. Despite her own age and grief, Naik continues to make the grueling journey from Mumbai to Delhi to attend the hearings, questioning why the system continues to accommodate the man who destroyed her family.

May 2023: Framing the Charges and Demanding Alternate Sentences

The formal trial began on May 9, 2023, when Additional Sessions Judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar of the Saket District Court framed charges against Poonawala under Section 302 (Murder) and Section 201 (Disappearance of Evidence) of the Indian Penal Code.

During the hearing, the defense counsel argued that Poonawala could not be charged simultaneously with both murder and the destruction of evidence, claiming they should be framed as alternate charges to prevent prejudice. The court dismissed the objection, finding prima facie evidence to proceed with both. When asked by the judge if he pleaded guilty, Poonawala looked directly at the bench and replied: "I don't plead guilty and will face the trial."

To mark one year since the tragedy, residents of Shraddha's native town of Vasai in Palghar organized a massive silent march on May 17, 2023. Hundreds of participants, led by Vikas Walkar and political representative Kirit Somaiya, marched to the local tehsil office carrying banners reading "Shraddhala lavkarat lavkar nyay dya" (Give justice to Shraddha at the earliest).

April 2023: The Constitutional Plea for Rites

Recognizing the slow pace of the trial, Vikas Walkar made a desperate attempt to bypass the judicial timeline. On April 16, 2023, his lawyer, Seema Kushwaha, filed a formal application in the Saket Court requesting the release of Shraddha’s remains.

The application argued that the family’s community customs dictated that last rites must be performed within a year of death. The Hindu calendar marked May 8, 2023, as the final culturally permissible date for the cremation. The petition invoked Article 21 of the Constitution of India, asserting that the right to dignity and fair treatment is not limited to the living but extends to the dead. However, the prosecution objected, stating that the remains—comprising thirteen degraded bone fragments—were crucial physical evidence that might need to be re-examined or exhibited before the court during witness testimonies. The court reserved its decision, leaving the remains locked in a forensic freezer.

Simultaneously, the owner of the rented Chhatarpur flat where the murder took place approached the court on April 3, 2023, filing an application to de-seal the premises, which had been locked by investigators since November 2022.

February 2023: Court Committal and CrPC Requests

On February 21, 2023, Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla officially committed the case to the Principal District and Sessions Judge of Saket, noting that the charges under Section 302 of the IPC were exclusively triable by a Sessions Court.

During this hearing, Poonawala made a personal request to the magistrate. He asked to be allowed to carry a physical copy of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), along with a notepad, pen, and a religious text, into the courtroom. He claimed these items were necessary to help him make notes and assist his defense counsel, advocate M.S. Khan. Khan also complained that the forensic digital footage provided by the police on a pen drive—including recorded video sessions of Shraddha speaking on the Practo medical app—was fragmented into short, out-of-sequence clips of 10 to 12 seconds each.

January 2023: The 6,629-Page Chargesheet and Forensic Certainty

Establishing the identity of the remains was one of the prosecution's greatest challenges. On January 4, 2023, the Delhi Police received a critical forensic report from the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) in Hyderabad.

Because the bones recovered from the Mehrauli and Chhatarpur forests were highly degraded and exposed to the elements for months, standard nuclear DNA extraction was impossible. Forensic scientists instead used mitochondrial DNA profiling, a specialized technique that matches the maternal lineage of degraded skeletal remains. The results were conclusive: the hair strands and thirteen recovered bones matched the DNA samples provided by Vikas Walkar and Shraddha’s brother.

Shortly thereafter, a post-mortem examination conducted by a medical board at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) confirmed that the bone fragments bore distinct, clean-cut marks, proving that a mechanical saw had been used to dismember her body.

On January 24, 2023, the Delhi Police filed a 6,629-page chargesheet in the Saket court. The document—which later ballooned to over 13,000 pages when integrated with scientific annexures, call logs, and digital reports—detailed a gruesome pattern of planning and cover-up. It contained over 180 witness testimonies, including those of neighbors, colleagues, and friends.

During this period of intense investigation, Vikas Walkar travelled to Mumbai to meet Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde at his Varsha bungalow on January 13, 2023, seeking administrative support. On January 17, 2023, Vikas met Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) police chief Madhukar Pandey, demanding strict disciplinary action against officers at the Tulinj and Manikpur police stations for their failure to act on early domestic abuse complaints.

December 2022: The Dance of Bail and the Rohini Narco Test

The final month of 2022 was marked by legal maneuvering and scientific evaluations:

• CFSL DNA Matching: On December 15, 2022, the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) confirmed that DNA extracted from the bone pieces matched the reference samples taken from Vikas Walkar.

• Bail Application Discrepancies: On December 14, 2022, advocate M.S. Khan filed a bail application for Poonawala. However, during a virtual production on December 17, Poonawala told Additional Sessions Judge Vrinda Kumari that he was unaware the application had been filed. After consulting with his lawyer in jail, Poonawala officially withdrew the bail application on December 22, 2022.

• The Narco-Analysis Test: On December 1, 2022, Poonawala underwent a successful two-hour narco-analysis test at Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini. This followed a series of polygraph sessions at the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Rohini in late November, which had been delayed by Poonawala's reported fever. On December 3, jail officials confirmed that Poonawala had requested the Tihar administration to provide him with novels and literature to read in his cell.

November 2022: The Confession in the Heat of the Moment

Following a missing person's complaint filed by Vikas Walkar in Maharashtra, Delhi Police tracked Poonawala's location and arrested him on November 12, 2022.

During a virtual remand hearing before Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla on November 22, 2022, Poonawala reportedly stated that the murder occurred "in the heat of the moment" and was "not deliberate". His legal aid counsel, Abinash Kumar, clarified that this statement did not constitute a formal confession under Indian law. The police recovered a rough site plan at the Chhatarpur flat, which led them to locate thirteen degraded bone fragments in the dense forests of Mehrauli and the Maidangarhi pond.

May 2022: A Dark Midnight in the Chhatarpur Woods

The tragedy culminated on May 18, 2022, inside a first-floor flat in the Chhatarpur Pahadi area of South Delhi. The couple had recently relocated from Mumbai.

According to the prosecution's chargesheet, the two had a history of volatile arguments over financial struggles and Poonawala's relationships with other women. On the evening of May 18, during a dispute over marriage and expenses, Poonawala strangled Walkar.

Over the next eighteen days, beginning at 2:00 AM every night, Poonawala carried her dismembered remains in plastic bags into the dense foliage of the Mehrauli forest and Chhatarpur hills, scattering them to prevent discovery and identification.

November 2020: The Unheeded Tulinj Complaint

The most frustrating aspect of the Walkar case is that the tragedy was explicitly foretold. On November 23, 2020, Shraddha walked into the Tulinj Police Station in Palghar, Maharashtra, with a handwritten complaint letter. Her words were a chilling blueprint of her eventual fate:

"Poonawala has been abusing me and beating me up... Today he tried to kill me by suffocating me and he scares and blackmails me that he will kill me, cut me up in pieces and throw me anyway."

She added that Poonawala's parents were aware of the physical abuse and his threats to kill her. Despite the detail in her complaint, local police did not take decisive action, and Shraddha later withdrew the letter under pressure from Poonawala. This administrative failure allowed the abuse to continue, culminating in their move to Delhi and her eventual murder.

2018–2019: The Digital Origin of a Volatile Relationship

The relationship began in 2018 in Mumbai. Shraddha, a graduate of Viva Institute of Technology in Virar, met Poonawala through the Bumble dating app. Both were employed at a call center in Malad.

In 2019, despite strong opposition from her family, who disapproved of the interfaith relationship and Poonawala's history of erratic behavior, Shraddha left her family home to move in with him. Her final words to her father, "Forget I am your daughter," marked the beginning of her isolation, cutting her off from her primary support network and leaving her vulnerable.

Systemic Arrears: The Structural Crisis of Indian Criminal Jurisprudence

The delays in the Walkar trial reflect broader structural issues within the Indian judicial system. Legally, a criminal case is considered "delayed" when its resolution exceeds a reasonable timeframe, and the accumulation of these cases forms a massive backlog.

As of January 2026, over 54 million cases are pending across various levels of the Indian judiciary. More than 85 percent of these cases are bottlenecked in district and subordinate courts, such as the Saket Court where the Walkar trial is underway.

Several structural issues explain why the Walkar case has taken over 215 hearings without reaching a verdict:

1. The Shortage of Judicial Officers and Infrastructure

The primary issue is a severe shortage of judges. With only 21 judges per million people, the judicial workforce is overwhelmed. Even when posts are sanctioned, vacancies remain unfilled for years due to bureaucratic delays in the collegium and state public service commission recruitment pipelines.

This shortage is compounded by inadequate infrastructure. In many districts, multiple judges are forced to share courtrooms, preventing trials from proceeding on a truly continuous basis.

2. The Procedural Loophole of Adjournments

The Code of Criminal Procedure (now replaced by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023) was designed to protect the rights of the accused. However, its provisions are frequently exploited to delay proceedings.

Courts routinely grant adjournments for personal, educational, or medical requests made by the accused. While these accommodations are framed as essential protections under Article 21, their cumulative effect is to stall the prosecution’s momentum. In the Walkar case, prioritizing Poonawala’s MA exams, dental visits, and psychiatric consultations over continuous hearings has pushed the trial into its fourth year.

3. Forensic and Administrative Bottlenecks

The prosecution’s chargesheet in the Walkar case relies heavily on circumstantial and scientific evidence. Generating these forensic reports involves significant delays.

India’s central and state forensic science laboratories face massive backlogs, often taking months to return DNA, mitochondrial, and digital evidence analyses. During this time, the court is forced to issue repeated summons to witnesses, police officers, and forensic experts. If a single witness or defense attorney is unavailable, the hearing is adjourned, and the trial is pushed back.

Conclusion: The Horizon of Justice

The trial of Aftab Poonawala is about more than just determining the guilt of a single defendant; it is a test of the Indian state’s ability to administer justice in a timely, empathetic manner. To the family of Shraddha Walkar, the court's repeated delays are a form of institutional cruelty. Her aunt, Rajal Naik, continues to attend court sessions, waiting for the day she can finally claim her niece’s remains and lay them to rest.

Until the Indian judicial system addresses its systemic delays, the promise of a speedy trial will remain unfulfilled. For the Walkar family, every adjourned hearing and accommodating order serves as a painful reminder that while the accused is allowed to study, plan, and live within the system, the victim remains uncremated, her memory caught in a cycle of endless litigation.