Suicide case: AAP MLA Chauhan granted bail

A Delhi court on Thursday granted bail to AAP MLA Sharad Chauhan, who had been arrested by the police in connection with the suicide of a woman worker of the ruling party. The court asked him to furnish a bail bond of Rs 30,000, with a surety of like amount.

“The deceased did not mention the name of the applicant anywhere in her statement. As per the investigating agency, before the arrest of the applicant, he has been thoroughly interrogated. No useful purpose will be served to further keep the applicant in custody,” additional sessions judge Gautam Manan said.

Pradeep Rana, who appeared for Mr Chauhan, had contended that his client had nothing to do with the suicide of the AAP activist. The defence counsel had also contended that the name of Mr Chauhan was nowhere mentioned by the deceased in her statement. “The name of my client did not appear anywhere in the case. He is being falsely implicated in the case,” Mr Rana contended. The court noted that in her statement, the deceased had named accused Ramesh Bhardwaj, Amit Bhardwaj and Rajni Kant as the persons responsible for her death as they had made her life hell by defaming her.

She had only written AML in one of the WhatsApp groups, but it was not clear that she was referring to the AAP MLA.

The police had opposed the bail plea of Mr Chauhan, arguing that the MLA had played a “big role” in shielding his associates in a separate case of molestation, which had forced the victim to live under constant threat. Mr Chauhan, along with others, was arrested on July 30.