The court of special judge (anti-corruption) Rajat Varma on Monday extended the judicial custody of all eight accused arrested in the alleged Ram temple donation theft case by another 14 days, till August 24.
Giving this information, Kul Shekhar Singh, the defence counsel, said all the accused were produced before the court through video conferencing from the district jail. Police have already interrogated them in separate police custody remands.
The eight arrested men include Avinash Shukla, Anukalp Mishra, Lavkush Mishra, Manish Kumar Yadav, Karunesh Pandey, Ramashankar Mishra, Subhash Srivastava and Ram Shankar Yadav alias Tinnu.
During the court proceedings, the defence counsel submitting his objections before the court, claiming that his clients were falsely implicated under wrong sections and the FIR registered against the accused was not correct.
He urged the court to drop the alleged wrong sections from the FIR. “I approached the court with the plea that police should investigate the case under correct sections and file the chargesheet correctly,” Singh said.
When asked about the alleged wrong sections, he claimed, “The police have imposed the sections of both theft and embezzlement. These two sections cannot run together in any case. The police have also imposed the section for life sentence. The Supreme Court has very clearly directed that the section for life sentence can only be imposed when the accused is a habitual criminal or has been punished before. However, in this case, the accused are first-time offenders, so this section of life imprisonment does not apply here.”
{{/usCountry}}When asked about the alleged wrong sections, he claimed, “The police have imposed the sections of both theft and embezzlement. These two sections cannot run together in any case. The police have also imposed the section for life sentence. The Supreme Court has very clearly directed that the section for life sentence can only be imposed when the accused is a habitual criminal or has been punished before. However, in this case, the accused are first-time offenders, so this section of life imprisonment does not apply here.”
{{/usCountry}}He further claimed the police booked the accused as public servants, but the Ram Temple Trust is not a public authority. “Had the police imposed the correct sections, my clients would have easily got bail from the local court,” Singh claimed.