Bora's plea rejected; to reappear in Court on June 21

A special court in Tis Hazari rejected the bail plea of sacked Assam Education Minister Ripun Bora and his associate businessman Ramesh Maheshwari. However, no bail plea was moved on behalf of the third accused Mukul Pathak, a journalist by profession, who was arrested on the same day from the Guwahati airport when his partners were apprehended from New Delhi.

•   E-mail Article
•   Printer Friendly
•   Text-Size    

“Keeping in view the gravity of the offence committed by the minister, I am not in a position to grant him bail at this stage,” said Special Judge Sat Pal Garg while rejecting the bail plea of Bora.

The court also denied to accept the bail application of Bora's associate and co-accused Ramesh Maheshwari on the same ground. While the third accused Mukul Pathak did not move the bail application.

Bora's team of advocates headed by I U Khan argued before the judge that CBI arrested his client before collecting the proper evidence and did not carry out the investigation in the case. Law, itself demands the probe agency to collect the evidence first and arrest later, but the CBI did just opposite to it.

Moreover, pleading for the granting of bail to his client, Khan said, his client have no criminal records in the past and he had served as a Government servant and an advocate before becoming a Minister. Bora also said to cooperate in the investigation of the murder of Daniel Topno. The CID of the state police had earlier given clean chit to his client, Khan defended.

However, the CBI opposed the bail application on the ground that Bora, if granted bail, could misuse his political influence and might tamper with evidence.

But, all these arguments by the defence went unheard by the judge. Bora will be produced in the court again on June 21.

All the three accused were sent to judicial custody for 14 days with effect from June 7 as the CBI did not seek further remand.

Earlier on June 4, a city court on Wednesday had sent Bora and his associate Ramesh Maheshwari to a three-day CBI remand on the charge of allegedly offering bribe of Rs 17 lakh to a CBI officer to affect the nature of the investigation into a murder case.

The central investigating agency, CBI had arrested Ripun Bora and a co-accused Ramesh K Maheswari on June 3 from Sundar Nagar (south Delhi) for allegedly offering bribe to one of agency's officer probing the murder of a student's union leader, Toppo.

The Minister along with his associate had reached Delhi just a day before and was residing in an inn in Sunder Nagar. On June 4, he invited Deputy Superintendent of Police A B Gupta, who was investigating the case and tried to bribe him. Bora along with Maheshwari met his ill-fate and was caught red handed by the CBI officials. His other associate Mukul Pathak, a journalist by profession was also arrested same day from the Guwahati airport.

Danniel Toppo was murdered on September 27, 2000. During the 1996 Assembly polls in Assam, he was the district President of the All Assam Tea Tribe Students' Union and contested the Gohpur seat as an independent candidate against the Bora. The CBI was handed over the case a year later after the local police remained fail to fetch any lead into the investigation.