Court denies bail to Ghandy

A Delhi court on Wednesday dismissed the bail plea of top Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy and directed the AIIMS to constitute a medical board to determine his fitness for a narco-analysis test, which was strongly opposed by him.

A Delhi court on Wednesday dismissed the bail plea of top Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy and directed the AIIMS to constitute a medical board to determine his fitness for a narco-analysis test, which was strongly opposed by him.

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Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja rejected Ghandy's bail plea saying the charges against him were grave and the investigation in the matter was also still at an initial stage.

The court, however, took into account the protest raised by Rebecca M John, counsel for the accused, which submitted that he was suffering from heart ailments and was not in a position to withstand such a test.

It directed the Medical Superintendent of the AIIMS to constitute the medical board to ascertain the health condition of Ghandy and asked the officer to file a report in the court in this regard by October 29.

The court's order for setting up the medical board came after public prosecutor Naveen Kumar agreed to the suggestion made by counsel for the accused saying his medical condition should be ascertained first before taking any decision on conducting the narco-test.

Delhi Police had yesterday moved the application for conducting narco-analysis test on Ghandy, a member of politbureau of banned CPI (Maoist) who was arrested last month, arguing that they could not extract "all useful" information due to his alleged non-cooperation despite using all scientific methods during interrogation.