The Uttarakhand High Court has ordered a stay on the arrest of two of the accused in the alleged sting conspiracy purportedly hatched by a news channel to destabilise the State Government.
The court has also directed these two accused persons- Pravin Sahni and Saurabh Sahni to cooperate in the police investigation. The investigation officer has also been directed to conduct an impartial investigation into all aspects of the case without any fear.
As per the case details, during August this year, the editor (investigation) of Samachar Plus news channel, Ayush Gaur from Greater Noida had lodged a complaint in the Rajpur police station in Dehradun against four persons including the chief executive officer of the channel- Umesh Sharma.
He had alleged in the complaint that Sharma was pressurising him to conduct a sting operation against influential officers of the State Government.
However, the petitioners contended that this FIR was wrong and sought that it be quashed. In their petition in the high court, they had also sought a stay on their arrest. Representing the petitioners, senior advocate of the supreme court, KTS Tulsi said that at present those who meet the chief minister are scanned and screened. Those wanting to meet the chief minister of Uttarakhand are also being made to remove their turban even as the state government claims to be observing zero tolerance for corruption. Tulsi questioned what the state government was wary of if it is working in a transparent manner with zero tolerance for corruption. The matter was taken up for hearing by the single bench of justice Lokpal Singh.
It will be recalled that earlier, the HC had ordered a stay on the arrest of another accused in this case- Rohit Bhatia.It is pertinent to mention here that the main accused in the case- Umesh Sharma was sent to 15 days judicial custody on October 29 by the court of additional chief judicial magistrate III in Dehradun. Later on October 31, the same court sent him to seven hours police remand.