New Delhi, July 04: DDA scam accused Dharambir Khattar's brother Devender Khattar today failed to get bail from a special court here in a case involving former Delhi High Court judge Shamit Mukherjee. "Considering the nature and seriousness of the offence, role of accused, larger public interest in view of the conspiracy involving the higher strata of public servants, the stage of investigation and the possibility of his influencing witnesses as some witnesses connected with the brother of the accused are yet to be traced and examined, I do not think that the accused be granted bail now," special judge Prem Kumar said turning down Devender's bail plea. This was Devender's second bail application. The court had dismissed his earlier bail application on June 9. He is accused of buying 24.66 kg of gold from a minerals and metals trading corporation outlet here at the instance of brother Dharambir, to be passed on to sacked DDA vice chairman Subhash Sharma and others for favours shown to co-accused and hotelier Vinod Khatri in the case Azad Singh versus DDA. The case was pending before Mukherjee.
The court observed that the allegations against Devender are corroborated by the telephonic conversations between him, his brother and Sharma, which the CBI had recorded.
Rejecting his contention that all co-accused have already been granted bail, the court said the "question of parity does not arise because each accused had separate and distinct role and the request for bail has to be considered on the merits of the facts." Bureau Report