The Karnataka Excessive Court docket has rejected a bail plea filed by a key accused in the Gauri Lankesh homicide case on the grounds that the Particular Investigation Staff (SIT) has delayed submitting a cost sheet in opposition to him.
Hrishikesh Devadikar, 41, one of many alleged masterminds within the killing of the 55-year-old journalist exterior her house on September 5, 2017, approached the Karnataka Excessive Court docket this yr claiming the precise to be launched on bail on account of the SIT not submitting a cost sheet inside 90 days of his arrest on January 9, 2020.
The excessive courtroom, nevertheless, dominated on October 21 that Devadikar can’t search reduction beneath Part 167 (2) of the Felony Process Code for bail for the reason that SIT had already filed a cost in opposition to him previous to his arrest and the investigating company sought an extension of 90 days to file an extra cost sheet as prescribed by the Karnataka Management of Organised Crime Act, 2000.
The excessive courtroom identified that an extra cost sheet was filed by the SIT in opposition to Devadikar a month upfront of the 180 days out there to the company to take action.
“I’m of the thought of opinion that within the current case, a cost sheet having been laid in opposition to the petitioner even previous to the arrest of the petitioner, the petitioner having been arraigned as an accused and charged with sure offences punishable beneath 302, 120(B), 114, 118, 109, 201, 203, 204, 35 IPC & 25 (1), 25(1B), 27(1) of Indian Arms Act and Part 3(1)(i), 3(2), 3(3), 3(4) of KCOCA, I’m of the thought of opinion that the profit beneath Subsection (2) of Part 167 of Cr.P.C. wouldn’t come up,” the Karnataka Excessive Court docket dominated.
Following Devadikar’s arrest in January 2020, the Karnataka SIT sought courtroom permission to file an additional cost sheet after 180 days as permitted beneath KCOCA. The SIT submitted an extra cost sheet in opposition to Devadikar on June 25, 2020 “inside the mentioned prolonged interval”, and therefore “there isn’t a query of statutory/default bail,” Justice Suraj Govindaraj dominated.
Devadikar was arrested by the SIT in Jharkhand in January 2020 after he disappeared following Lankesh’s homicide. Devadikar alias Murali is allegedly linked to the right-wing group, Sanatan Sanstha, and its affiliate, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS). A number of articles on the HJS web site recorded his presence at conferences of the Sanatan Sanstha and the HJS.
Devadikar was named as accused quantity 18 in a cost sheet filed by the SIT in November 2018 in reference to Lankesh’s homicide. He’s alleged to have been one of many key plotters and allegedly offered coaching and the weapons utilized by the assassins. “He was primarily concerned within the conspiracy to homicide Lankesh,” the SIT mentioned in January 2020.
In keeping with the SIT, Devadikar is a key founding member of a criminal offense syndicate created in 2011 by the previous HJS activist Virendra Tawade to hold out assassinations of individuals perceived as being anti-Hindu. The group is alleged to have carried out the killings of Maharashtra rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, 69, in 2013, Leftist thinker Govind Pansare, 81, in 2015, Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi, 77, additionally in 2015, other than the homicide of journalist Gauri Lankesh in 2017.