The Chhattisgarh High Court, Bilaspur on Tuesday grated anticipatory bail to three Antagarh tape scam case accused--Dr Punit Gupta, son-in-law of former Chief Minister Raman Singh, former minister Rajesh Munat and Manturam Pawar, the candidate of Congress in 2014 Antagarh by-election.
Justice Gautam Bhaduri granted the bail to the accused.
An FIR was registered at Pandri police station of the capital against the accused under section 420 and Prevention of Corruption Act. Action was taken after Dr Kiranmayi Nayak of Congress had lodged a complaint against the trio.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) had already been set up by the state government to probe the tape issue.
The probe pertains to a case of Antagarh by-polls held in 2014 in which BJP’s Bhojraj Nag and the Congress’s Manturam Pawar were the candidates. Pawar had withdrawn his nomination at the last minute, which was seen by the Congress as a ploy hatched by the BJP. The BJP denied the allegations.
In 2015-16 audio tapes surfaced that purportedly revealed that the Antagarh assembly by-poll in 2014 was fixed.
The tapes contained alleged phone conversations between former chief minister Ajit Jogi, his son Amit, Puneet Gupta, Manturam Pawar and former Jogi loyalists Firoz Siddiqui and Ameen Memon, to “fix” the by-poll.
