Row over buses: HC grants interim bail to Priyanka Gandhi’s secretary

The Allahabad High Court on Friday granted anticipatory bail to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s aide Sandeep Singh over a list of 1,000 buses the party had offered for ferrying migrant workers stranded outside the state due to the coronavirus lockdown.

The Allahabad High Court on Friday granted anticipatory bail to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's aide Sandeep Singh over a list of 1,000 buses the party had offered for ferrying migrant workers stranded outside the state due to the coronavirus lockdown. The Lucknow bench of the high court said the offer had come from Priyanka Gandhi and Singh had only communicated it to the state government.

The Congress leader's private secretary was booked in May after the UP authorities said the list contained many vehicles without valid papers like insurance and fitness certificates. The state government had claimed that some of vehicles mentioned in the list were not even buses. Trucks and two-wheelers were being passed off as buses, it said.

Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh granted anticipatory bail to Sandeep Singh till the filing of a police report in the matter after the investigation is over. "In the event of arrest, Singh shall be released on bail on his furnishing a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and two sureties of the same amount to the satisfaction of the concerned arresting officer," the order said.

The judge, however, directed Singh to cooperate in the investigation and make himself available for interrogation if required.The court also restrained him from leaving the country without its permission. The bail application argued that Singh was being falsely implicated in the case due to political motives.

He had written letters to Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Awasthi during a face-off over the offer of buses, which the BJP government in the state was reluctant to accept. Both sides blamed the other of playing politics over the plight of stranded workers. Granting anticipatory bail, the judge said Sandeep Singh wrote on behalf of the Congress leader.

"In every letter he said that he was writing on behalf of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. She is not an accused in the FIR in question. It is in fact Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who on behalf of the Congress party offered the buses. Singh was only conveying the messages and writing letters on her behalf," the court said. Singh was booked along with the party's state unit president Ajay Kumar Lallu on May 19.

The two were charged under the Indian Penal Code sections related to forging documents and cheating after the state government said the list buses contained vehicles without valid papers. Lallu was arrested and later released on bail. Sandeep Singh moved court, apprehending arrest in the same case.PTI COR SAB ASH ASH

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