Court denies anticipatory bail to Kanda

New Delhi -  The Delhi High Court Friday dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Haryana's former minister Gopal Goyal Kanda, accused of abetting in the suicide of former flight attendant Geetika Sharma.

The court dismissed Kanda's plea on technical grounds without going into the merits of the case.

Justice P.K. Bhasin said: "In my view, 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 (Kanda) apprehending his arrest."

The court dismissed the plea, observing that the affidavit filed with the bail application was not signed by Kanda, but was signed by his brother.

"The present anticipatory bail application has been filed on the instruction of one Govind Kumar, who claims himself to be the brother and 'pairokaar' of Gopal Goyal Kanda," Justice Bhasin said.

"In the entire application, not even a word has been said as to why Gopal Goyal Kanda himself had not sworn an affidavit in support of this application if at all he had filed the same," Justice Bhasin said, dismissing the plea.

"Considering the fact that Gopal Goyal Kanda is a free man, at least at the present point of time, he alone could have moved the anticipatory bail application supported by his own affidavit and in the absence of his having done that, this application cannot be considered by this court to have actually been filed by him," court added.

The former Haryana minister was booked for abetment to Geetika's suicide and criminal intimidation. He is yet to appear before Delhi Police for questioning.

Geetika, 23, was found hanging from the ceiling of her house in north Delhi's Ashok Vihar on Aug 5. She left behind two suicide notes, blaming Kanda and his employee Aruna Chaddha, who is now in judicial custody.

Geetika earlier worked as a flight attendant in the MDLR Airlines owned by Kanda. After the airlines ceased to function in 2009, she was given a job in another company owned by him.

Kanda's anticipatory bail plea was dismissed Aug 9 by a sessions court here.