Bail granted to accused in Dabholkar murder case

Pune: Amol Kale, Amit Digvekar and Rajesh Bangera – accused in the Dr Narendra Dabholkar murder case – were given bail by a Pune special court as the CBI, which is the investigating agency, could not file a charge-sheet within 90 days.

The Pune court granted bail as the CBI also did not seek an extension to file the charge-sheet. It has been more than 100 days since their arrest, and the CBI should have filed the charge-sheet before 90 days.

Kale, Bangera and Digvekar were arrested for the murder of rationalist and anti-superstition crusader, Dr Dabholkar, in September this year. They had been arrested by the Karnataka police for the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. The CBI, which is investigating Dr Dabholkar’s murder, took their custody for two weeks.

Dharmraj Chandel, the lawyer of the accused, argued, “Bangera and Digvekar were arrested on September 1, and Kale was arrested on Septe-mber 6. And on December 14, more than 100 days have passed and the CBI has not filed a charge-sheet which it should have done within 90 days. The CBI also did not ask for an extension to do so. We moved this application on December 12.”

The CBI lawyer argued that the CBI investigation officer had been busy with Delhi cases and asked that the CBI be given time till December 20 to file the charge-sheet. But the court did not allow the same.

SMA Sayyed, judicial magistrate (first-class), Friday approved the application of the accused’s lawyer asking for default bail. Kale is currently in the custody of the SIT which is investigating the murder of comrade Govind Pansare. The SIT had taken his custody from the Bangalore court as he was also an accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case.

The CBI had invoked the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act against two other accused, Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar. The court on November 17 gave an extension of 45 days to the CBI to file a charge-sheet; the extension will be over at the end of this month.