CBI court rejects MLA's anticipatory bail plea

A special CBI court in Panchkula today rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Haryana MLA and former minister, O P Jain, in connection with an abatement to suicide case of a former village head registered against him.
The court had on Monday heard the arguments on the anticipatory bail application of Jain, who is an Independent MLA from Panipat Rural and reserved the orders for today.
Jain's counsel said that they would now move the High Court.
Earlier, the legislator told the court that the MLA had already joined the investigations and was extending full co-operation and his custody was not required.

The counsel had also submitted that Jain has not threatened any of the witnesses and neither has forced anyone to commit suicide.
The CBI had recently filed a charge sheet against three persons, including Jain and another MLA, in connection with the death of Karam Singh, a village head in Karnal district in 2011.

The charge sheet was filed by the probe agency before the CBI court in Panchkula against Jain, and Zile Ram Sharma, former chief parliamentary secretary.
Rajinder, a personal assistant of Jain, has also been named in the charge sheet.
The complaint in the case was filed by the deceased's son Rajinder Singh.

Singh had alleged that both Jain and Sharma used to take money on the pretext of providing government jobs to people, but in Karam's case, none of his applicants got their jobs despite giving money and the legislators even refused to return it.
Jain, an Independent MLA from Panipat Rural and Zile Ram, the Congress legislator from Assandh, had earlier refuted these allegations as baseless.
The charge sheet said that the former village head kept asking for money from the accused, but in vain. After that, he allegedly committed suicide on June 7, 2011.
Earlier, they had been booked for murder, but after investigations in the case, they were charged for abatement to suicide.

After the case hogged headlines two years back, Jain and Zile Ram had to resign from their posts. However, both have been maintaining that they had no role in the death of the former village head.