Chandigarh, May 28: Punjab and Haryana High Court today dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of absconding judicial magistrate S S Bhardwaj allegedly involved in a graft case. Justice Virender Singh, who had issued the notice to CBI for today, dismissed the plea of Bhardwaj who had managed to give a slip to CBI after the agency sleuths caught him on May 9 while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs seven lakh on behalf of district and sessions judge, Jalandhar R M Gupta.
Special CBI judge Balbir Singh had last week dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Bhardwaj, against whom action was taken by CBI on a complaint of one G S Samra that he (Bhardwaj) had demanded Rs 11 lakh on behalf of Gupta.
The complainant had allegedly paid the first installment of Rs seven lakh to Bhardwaj, who later claimed in an interview to a TV channel from his hideout that he was not present at his residence at the time of the raid.
Meanwhile a three judge bench comprising Justice G S Singhvi, Justice N K Sodhi and Justice Swatantar Kumar adjourned to July seven the case relating to contempt notice to local daily tribune in connection with a recent report carried by it claiming that the name of a high court judge and SSP, Jalandhar had been added to the FIR registered in connection with Samra's complaint.
The bench had recently also issued notice to the CBI to verify the information contained in the report based on "sources in Delhi". The CBI had described the report as "completely baseless and malicious" while the daily had tendered an "unqualified and unconditional" apology.
Bureau Report