2001 kidnapping case: U.P. court rejects Amarmani’s anticipatory bail application
Former UP minister Amarmani Tripathi's anticipatory bail plea in 2001 kidnapping case rejected; declared proclaimed offender with property attachment order.
The MP/MLA court of Basti on Thursday rejected the application of former Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi seeking an anticipatory bail in the 2001 Rahul Madhesia kidnapping case, said Basti police and prosecution officials on Friday.
They said Judge, Basti MP-MLA court, Pramod Kumar Giri dismissed the former minister’s anticipatory bail plea, stating no relaxation could be granted to absconding proclaimed offenders. They said the court declared him a proclaimed offender and ordered attachment of his property on December 2, 2023, in the case related to the kidnapping of Basti businessman Dharamraj Gupta’s son Rahul Madhesia.
A senior police official said the court noted his role in providing protection to kidnappers and facilitating access to vehicles and money. He said the court said Amarmani Tripathi deliberately avoided appearing in the court, causing continuous delays in the case. The court fixed July 20 as the next hearing in the case.
The police official said Amarmani Tripathi’s lawyer filed an interim bail application on July 3, 2024, arguing that he was falsely implicated in the case. As per the lawyer, his client wasn’t initially named in the FIR but was later included as a co-accused during the investigation.
He said the defence lawyer stated the complainant in the case had died while Rahul Madhesia himself had submitted a settlement saying that Amarmani Tripathi was not involved in his kidnapping. However, there’s an outstanding arrest warrant against him, prompting the appeal for the bail.
“Amarmani Tripathi was arrested on December 19, 2001, in Lucknow and presented in Basti court for custody remand on December 21, 2001. It was mentioned that a bail order was issued on February 1, 2002,” the lawyer mentioned in his application.
On December 6, 2001, Dharmaraj Gupta’s son was kidnapped from Gandhi Nagar locality in Basti city police station limits by some unidentified persons when he was going to his school. UP Special Task Force (STF) recovered him safely seven days later from Lucknow’s residence of Amarmani Tripathi.
Earlier, the Prisons Administration and Reform Services department on August 24, 2023, issued an order for the premature release of Amarmani Tripathi and his wife Madhumani Tripathi, citing the state’s 2018 policy on remission, since they had completed 20 years of imprisonment in the 2003 murder case of poet Madhumita Shukla in Lucknow.