Court reserves order on Kanda's interim bail plea

A Delhi Court Wednesday reserved its order on the interim bail plea of former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda, an accused in a case related to suicide of a former air hostess.

Additional Sessions Judge M.C. Gupta reserved the order after Kanda's counsel and the prosecution concluded their arguments on the plea seeking interim bail to allow him to attend the state assembly session.

Delhi Police also moved an application for reducing the period of interim bail granted to Kanda's co-accused Aruna Chaddha. She was granted interim bail Tuesday till Nov 11.

Kanda's counsel told the court that he wanted to attend the assembly session for which he was seeking interim bail.

"He is a legislator from Sirsa, which is a big constituency. He has to perform many obligations and welfare activities for his people. Funds for his constituency are lying unutilised. The public is suffering," the lawyer said.

Kanda has been in custody for over 13 months.

Additional Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan opposed Kanda's interim bail, saying there was reasonable apprehension of his tampering with the evidence.

"In February, there was a session of Haryana assembly. When Kanda did not feel the need to seek bail for attending it, why is he seeking interim bail for this session? There is reasonable apprehension of him tampering with the evidence," he said.

It was further added that eight prosecution witnesses had been examined and many prosecution witnesses were current and former employees of Kanda.

Kanda and Chaddha were accused of abetting the suicide of a 23-year-old former air hostess. Both Kanda and Chaddha have denied the allegations.

In a note, the suicide victim accused Kanda and Chaddha of harassing her and forcing her to kill herself. She died on the intervening night of Aug 4-5, 2012, at her house in Delhi.

Kanda was charged with rape, abetment of rape, abetment of suicide, criminal conspiracy, forgery under the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act for hacking computers and sending offensive or false messages.

He was arrested Aug 18, 2012, after he surrendered before police in north Delhi's Ashok Vihar area.