Chandigarh, August 5
The Haryana IGP, Mr Ravi Kant Sharma, today applied for anticipatory bail in a Panchkula court even as the Delhi Police sought the help of the State Government to persuade the IPS officer of the 1976 batch to give up.
The bail application was filed through a Panchkula-based advocate, Mr Ravi Sharma, in the court of the Additional District Judge, Panchkula, Mr H.S. Bhangoo. The application has been listed for hearing tomorrow.
According to informed sources, the Additional Commissioner, Crime, Delhi, Mr Kamar Ahmed, has written to the Chief Secretary, Haryana, and the Director-General, Prisons, Haryana, Mr A.S. Bhatotia, that Mr Sharma is required to join investigation in the FIR no. 21/99 of January 23, 1999, registered at Police Station, Mandawali, Delhi, in connection with the murder of Shivani. He urged the Haryana officers to ask Mr Sharma to cooperate with the Delhi Police and join in the investigation. Mr Sharma is posted as I.G., Prisons, these days.
It is learnt that the Chief Secretary has asked the Director-General of the Haryana Police, Mr M.S. Malik, and Mr Bhatotia to take necessary action on Mr Ahmed’s letter of August 3, which was delivered to the State authorities today.
The sources say Mr Bhatotia as well as Mr Malik have sent written communications to Mr Sharma at his Panchkula residence, asking him to cooperate with the Delhi Police.
In his bail application, Mr Sharma said since he had “deep roots” in society, there was no likelihood of his either fleeing away from justice or hampering the investigation. He said he was confident of being able to
prove his innocence before any court of law.
He contended that he was being falsely implicated and “he has been made a scapegoat at the behest of people who belong to the higher echelons of society and are real culprits in the present case”.
He also accused the Delhi police of raiding his residence on August 4 and taking away certain articles, of which no inventory was made, in an “unauthorised” search.
Mr Sharma further contended that the Shivani case “has been unduly hyped and he is being held guilty even before giving him a chance to prove his innocence. He also submitted that he was being “roped in in a carefully planned conspiracy”.
Alleging that the investigation “has been misled to save the real culprits who are influential people”, Mr Sharma pleaded that he had always been available to the investigating agency during the over three-year-long investigation.
Quoting a recent Supreme Court judgement in the Joginder Kumar versus State of U.P., which said that “a person is not liable to be arrested merely on the suspicion of complicity in an offence. There must be some reasonable justification in the opinion of the officer effecting the arrest that such arrest is necessary and justified”, Mr Sharma prayed to the court to grant him anticipatory bail or transitory bail so that he could approach the court of appropriate jurisdiction.
