Court dismisses police plea to cancel bail of ex-SC staffer in cheating case

A Delhi court Friday dismissed a plea for cancelling bail of the Supreme Court's former woman employee, who had levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against Chief Justice of India, in a cheating and criminal intimidation case. Supreme Court's 3-member In-House Inquiry Committee, headed by Justice S A Bobde, had in May this year given clean chit to the CJI as it "found no substance" in the allegations levelled against him by the woman.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Manish Khurana on Friday dismissed the application filed by Delhi Police after being informed by advocate V K Ohri, appearing for the accused, that the notice of the application could not be served to the complainant in the case despite several attempts since earlier this year. "Perusal of the record reveals that the complainant has not been appearing in this case and the notice issued to him could not be served.

"In these circumstances, no fruitful purpose will be served by keeping the application for cancellation of bail of accused pending and the same is accordingly dismissed and disposed of," the court said. The police had sought cancellation of the bail granted to the woman on March 12, after the complainant allegedly claimed that he was being threatened by the former Supreme Court staffer and her associates.

An FIR for the alleged offences of cheating, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy was lodged against the woman on March 3, after a complaint was filed by Naveen Kumar, a resident of Jhajjar in Haryana, at the Tilak Marg Police Station here. Kumar has alleged that the woman had defrauded him of Rs 50,000, which he claimed she took as part of a bribe, promising him a job at the Supreme Court.

He claimed that in June 2017, he met the woman through a common friend, Mansha Ram, regarding his employment and she had told him she was a personal assistant of a judge in the Supreme Court and her husband was also an officer. Kumar said the woman had claimed that she has good contacts and can get him employed as process server or as a class-IV employee in the Supreme Court in about one-and-a-half month time, and for this she allegedly demanded Rs 10 lakh from him.

He approached the police claiming that he has been cheated of Rs 50,000 by the woman on the pretext of his employment in the apex court and that she neither returned his money nor got him employed. He alleged the woman and her husband threatened him for life if he demanded the money back.

During the investigation, the woman was arrested by the police on March 10 and sent to judicial custody by a court here the next day. She was granted bail on March 12. On March 14, the investigation in the case was taken up by the crime branch of Delhi Police and the complainant addressed an application to the DCP that he was being threatened by the woman and her associates.

The police also told the court, in its application, that the SSP of Jhajjar has been sent a letter to provide adequate protection to the complainant. The woman had sent a sworn affidavit to the residences of 22 apex court judges levelling allegations against CJI Ranjan Gogoi.

In her affidavit, the former SC employee has described two incidents of alleged molestation by the CJI. Both the alleged incident took place in October 2018, within days of CJI Gogoi being appointed to the post.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)