Court stays Barala’s bail petition, next hearing scheduled on Sept 11

Chandigarh: Chandigarh district court ordered stay on bail application of Vikas Barala, the main accused in the stalking case of August 5. Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala’ son Vikas Barala and his friend Ashish Kumar were sent to judicial custody. Vikas Barala had applied for bail on Thursday, which came up for hearing on Friday. Meanwhile, the district and sessions judge, Chandigarh, Balbir Singh, ordered stay on the arguments and postponed the hearing to September 11.
The prosecution filed an application in court of district and sessions judge requesting for the case to be shifted with a female judge. The bail application was listed in the court of additional district and sessions judge Rajnish Kumar Sharma, however, referring to the ‘UT administration's notification dated February 11, 2014 prosecution stated that according to the notification any heinous crime involving a woman/women must be heard by a woman judge’.
As per an application moved by DSP (east), it was prayed that since a special court for crime against women is present, the case may be transferred to that judge. The sessions judge will hear the matter on Monday, following which the bail petition would be heard on Tuesday. Defence counsel Surya Prakash said , “There is no problem if the case is shifted to a female judge but why is the Chandigarh police following all the rules only for this case. These are mere tactics to delay Vikas’s bail.” CCTV footage of police station was also sought from the police as it has been argued that the whole case was fabricated. It was stated in the bail petition that FIR was registered with fool proof planning as defence party had learnt that the complaint was well drafted after taking legal advise.
It was pointed out that on the day of the filing of the complaint, complainant, Varnika Kundu and her father were present with tow advocates at the police station.
Police were questioned that why was their statement changing and why did they give different facts to media. It was pointed out that initially police gave the information to the media that sections 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the IPC were added to the FIR.
However, later police updated the mediapersons saying the said sections were not been added to the FIR. This let to further questioning whereby it was alleged that the aforementioned sections were removed from the FIR under political influence. The defence further argued that bail is granted within 10 days in such cases, but here the accused has been in judicial custody since August 10 despite the investigation being nearly over.