Dara encounter: 2 police officials granted bail

Single judge bench of Justice R S Rathore granted bail to ASI Surendra Singh and the driver of police vehicle used in the encounter, Sardar Singh.

ASI Singh was arrested on March 11, 2011.

In June last year CBI had accused 14 policemen and two individuals for the alleged fake encounter of Dara Singh in 2006 by Rajasthan Police's special operations group in its charge sheet.

In its charge sheet the agency had slapped charges of murder, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping among others on the accused in the case for killing Singh in a "fake" gun battle by a team of special operations group of Rajasthan Police in October 2006.

The petitioners argued before the court that the CBI has "concocted" the story as there was no material evidence in the circumstances of the case to prove any criminal action alleged against the accused petitioners.

They alleged that the witnesses were planted by the CBI to prove its hypothetical theory of murder.

The petitioners took the court through the charge-sheet to show "how a fake story has been created to show that the encounter was a managed affair and was fake."

Convinced by the arguments of the petitioners Justice Rathore granted them bail as the charge-sheet has already been filed and most of the witnesses are CBI or police officials and there are no chances of the petitioners affecting any material witness.

The bail order was, however, not made available and the two accused will be released on bail only on Saturday now.