Local court grants bail to Samachar Plus editor-in-chief

A local court granted bail to the CEO and editor-in-chief of Samachar Plus on Friday, 19 days after he was arrested for mounting undue pressure on a subordinate to conduct a sting operation on Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and a senior bureaucrat considered close to him.

Samachar Plus CEO Umesh Kumar Sharma has been granted bail by the district and sessions court, Rajpur police station incharge Umesh Kumar said.

The private news channel head was arrested from his Indirapuram residence in Ghaziabad on October 28 on the charges of threatening a subordinate with dire consequences if he failed to conduct stings on the CM and the additional chief secretary.

According to a complaint filed with the Rajpur police station here, Sharma wanted his channel to conduct the stings so he could dictate terms with the higher ups in the government and the bureaucracy.

The Uttarakhand High Court had on Thursday turned down a plea by the state police seeking permission to conduct a narco test and brain mapping of Sharma.

While rejecting the plea, a division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Rangnathan and Justice Alok Singh had also directed the lower court in Dehradun to take a call on the bail application of Sharma by Friday.

Sharma's name had first cropped up in connection with conducting a sting video of former chief minister Harish Rawat in which he was shown negotiating a deal to get the support of disgruntled party MLAs to save his government in 2016.