NEW DELHI, Aug 17: Absconding ex-Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda’s anticipatory bail plea in the Geetika Sharma suicide case was today dismissed by the Delhi High Court on the ground that it has not been filed by the person who is apprehending arrest.
Justice P K Bhasin, in his order, said that the accused “appears to be sitting comfortably somewhere without any apprehension of his arrest by the police” and his brother Govind Kumar has filed the anticipatory bail application on his behalf without any proper authorization.
“This anticipatory bail application is liable to be rejected without going into the merits at all only on the ground that the same has not been filed by the person who is apprehending the arrest,” Justice Bhasin said.
The court referred to various technical and procedural infirmities in the bail application of Kanda to stress the fact that the plea did not require to be dealt on merits.
It said that neither the vakalatnama nor the affidavits have been filed by the accused himself and the person who has executed the documents has also not been authorised to do so.
A magisterial court, yesterday, had issued a non-bailable warrant against the former Haryana minister and also sent his aide and co-accused Aruna Chaddha to judicial custody for 14 days.
On August 14, while opposing Kanda’s anticipatory bail plea in the High Court, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Siddharth Luthra had said the police needed to quiz him to find the missing computers and other crucial evidence in the case.
An absconding accused does not deserve anticipatory bail as “there is an answer to be given to the society, the dead soul and the victim’s family,” the ASG had said.
The computers, which may give crucial leads in the ongoing probe against Kanda, co-accused Aruna Chaddha and the victim are missing from the Gurgaon-based office of MDLR group, he had said, adding that Kanda’s custodial interrogation was needed to trace them.
Kanda’s counsel K T S Tulsi, however, had said that the ingredients of offence of Section 306 (abetment of suicide) under the IPC was missing in the FIR as the accused neither “urged”, nor “incited” nor “goaded” the victim to commit suicide.
“I was her employer and you cannot hang me with the next pole just because of the fact that I knew her,” he had said.
Aruna Chaddha was arrested on August 8 after she was called in for questioning by the police.
On August 9, the trial court had rejected Kanda’s plea for anticipatory bail.
Kanda has remained elusive ever since Sharma was found hanging in her flat in north west Delhi on August 5.
Sharma (23), a former air hostess with Kanda’s now defunct MDLR airline, had alleged in her suicide note that she was ending her life due to harassment by Kanda and MDLR official Aruna Chaddha.
Both Kanda and Chaddha had denied the allegations.
Kanda, an Independent MLA who held Home, Urban Bodies and Industry and Commerce portfolios, resigned the following day. (PTI)
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