The Patna high court has allowed the anticipatory bail plea of former Bihar law minster and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Kartikey Kumar, accused of kidnapping a builder Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Raju.
A single judge bench of justice Sunil Kumar Panwar passed the order while hearing a Criminal Misc Anticipatory Bail Application filed by Kartikey Kumar alias Kartik Singh alias Master Ji on September 5. The anticipatory bail application has been filed by the applicant apprehending his arrest in the eight-year-old kidnapping case lodged with Bihta police station of Patna. The court of first-class judicial magistrate (Danapur) Ajay Kumar ordered issue of bailable warrant against Kartikey on July 17 and arrest warrant was issued by the court on July 19.
Counsel for the applicant submitted that the ex-minister has been falsely implicated in this case as he has “not committed any offence as alleged in the prosecution story so narrated in the statement under Section of 164 of CrPC.”
The Danapur court of ADJ-III rejected his anticipatory bail petition on September 1. Kartikey Kumar resigned on August 31, the day his portfolio was changed from law to sugarcane.
In the six-page order, the court said that the petitioner’s wife Ranjana Kumari had submit an application before Patna zonal IG and claimed that her husband was present in the school (Mokama) at the time and date of occurrence of the abduction incident.
“However, the police investigation revealed that the mobile location of Kartikey was found near Hem Plaza in Patna, which is close to the site of incident,” the court said, adding that the Patna high court had on February 16, 2017, had already rejected Kartikey’s anticipatory bail petition and directed him to surrender before the lower court.
Even on July 7, 2022, Kartikey sought permission to withdraw the present quashing application from the high court,” the court said, adding all the developments in Patna high court had been hidden in the petitioner bail petition.
Kartikey, a close aide of incarcerated Mokama MLA Anant Singh, was in the eye of a storm the day he took oath, as the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questioned the move asking how he skipped the surrender to take oath, and the matter snowballed when he was given the law portfolio.