New Delhi, July 20: A special court today granted two-day interim bail to graft accused Director General Corporate Affairs B K Bansal to attend the last rites of his wife and daughter, who allegedly committed suicide yesterday, observing that CBI needs to “rethink” whether it is necessary to arrest accused in such cases.
“Its time for the agency to rethink whether its necessary to arrest accused in such cases. These are not conventional crimes like murder. Earlier, CBI used to not arrest in such cases. Its only after the movements like that of the Anna Hazare and some others that arrests are being made in these cases. They are the public servants and the evidences are mostly documentary in nature in such cases,” Special CBI Judge Gurdeep Singh observed during the day’s proceedings.
“The accused/applicant (Bansal), who is in police custody remand till July 22, is admitted to interim bail till July 22 on his executing personal bond in the sum of Rs 50,000 along with one surety in the like amount to the satisfaction of this court,” the court said.
Seeking interim bail, advocate Umakant Kataria, who appeared for 59-year-old Bansal, submitted that there was nobody in his family to look after and perform the last rites of his wife and daughter.
“The applicant (Bansal) himself is under shock and his only son is grief stricken and has been stunned to the extent that he is not able to attend the people and is sitting like a statue.“The applicant himself is presently under shock and admitted in the trauma centre/emergency at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital,” the counsel said.
In its reply to Bansal’s application, the probe agency said it had no objection to the interim bail to the accused on “humanitarian grounds”.
Bansal’s wife Satyabala (58) and daughter Neha (28) allegedly hung themselves from ceiling fans in two separate rooms at their residence in Nilkanth Apartments in east Delhi’s Madhu Vihar yesterday.
Both the women left separate suicide notes, saying the CBI raid had caused “great humiliation” and they did not want to live after that. They, however, held nobody responsible for their deaths.
Bansal, an additional secretary-rank officer in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, was arrested by CBI on July 16 for allegedly accepting bribe from a prominent pharmaceutical company. CBI had carried out searches at eight locations in connection with the case during which the agency had claimed to have made cash recoveries.
