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Sexual harassment case: Court reserves order for Friday on Haryana minister Sandeep Singh’s anticipatory bail plea
Today, the complainant’s counsel filed an application opposing Haryana minister Sandeep Singh’s anticipatory bail plea, claiming that the minister did not cooperate with the investigating agency and “pressurised” the victim to withdraw the complaint.
The district court, Chandigarh, on Thursday reserved its order for Friday on Haryana minister Sandeep Singh’s anticipatory bail plea in a sexual harassment case.
Today, the complainant’s counsel filed an application opposing Singh’s anticipatory bail plea, claiming that the minister did not cooperate with the investigating agency and “pressurised” the victim to withdraw the complaint.
Singh, a former captain of the Indian hockey team, was booked by the Chandigarh Police on December 31, 2022, on the complaint of a junior athletics coach. He gave up his sports portfolio a day after. The court had issued notice to the accused minister for September 16 on the challan by UT police.
However, anticipating arrest from the Chandigarh Police, Singh’s counsel filed an anticipatory bail application in the court on September 4.
Today, the case was listed wherein the complainant’s counsels Sameer Sethi and Deepanshu Bansal opposed the anticipatory bail plea.
It is alleged in the application that the petitioner (Sandeep Singh) has deliberately concealed the material particulars with regard to his influencing the investigating agency and with regard to his non-cooperation in determination of the true facts.
It added that though the petitioner joined the investigation, the statement given before the police during the interrogation was contrary to the facts as collected by the investigating agency. “Also, the agency had filed an application seeking consent of the petitioner to undergo lie detection test, but he refused to undergo the test. This conduct shows that he has not cooperated during investigation” the counsels mentioned in the application.
The application mentioned that Singh, being a member of the legislative assembly, is “misusing the government machinery to put the victim under pressure”.
“Singh has also concealed the facts with regard to his interfering in the investigation, trying to allure the victim by offering her money, putting pressure on her by using his official position as minister, by getting her suspended without any reason, getting her followed through CID officials of Haryana government and by filing a false complaint within the jurisdiction of Haryana and getting constituted an SIT, without registering an FIR, just to harass the complainant and put pressure on her and her family members, to withdraw her complaint,” the application reads.
Opposing the bail plea, it adds: “If granted the relief of anticipatory bail, he will influence the trial and shall put pressure on the victim to back off from her allegations.”
Singh’s counsel submitted some judgments from apex court stating why petitioner should be granted the anticipatory bail.
Arguments were heard by the court today, and it has reserved the orders for tomorrow.
