A senior lawyer feels that the extortion case against former CRPF officer Vikash Yadav is baseless as the US has named him as a conspirator in the murder plot.
New Delhi: Senior advocate Raj Kamal Handoo, appearing for former Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officer Vikash Yadav, said there was no basis for Yadav's arrest by the Delhi Police on the grounds of intimidation. .
He further described both the First Information Report (FIR) filed in the case and the subsequent charge sheet as “works of fiction”.
Earlier this week, the US government named Yadav as a key conspirator in the assassination plot of Gurpadwant Singh Bannu. On Friday, he was added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) “most wanted” list for his alleged role in the plot.
Handoo said the entire extortion case registered against him in Delhi was “false and fictitious in nature” and the court granted Yadav regular bail in April while the legal process in the case was ongoing.
“A careful reading of the charge sheet filed in the case clearly shows that he has been falsely implicated. “There are no logical statements in the documents, it is as if an incident has been torn from one place and pasted to complete this fiction,” he said.
According to Handoo, Yadav, who was arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police on charges of extortion on December 23 last year following a complaint lodged by a Rohini businessman, was off duty when he approached Handoo for help. legal in the case. . Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Devendra Kumar Jangala granted him bail on April 22 this year after spending four months in Tihar jail.
Sources said Yadav, a deputy in the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), was transferred back to the CRPF in May last year. He was later dismissed from the service for going beyond the limits of his assigned duty, sources said.
Yadav, a native of Haryana's Rewari district, was a senior field officer in the intelligence agency, equivalent to the rank of deputy superintendent, sources said.
Sources advising Yadav say he was instructed not to interact with the media. People who went to his village to meet him after his name became public could not find him at his house.
The US government released a charge sheet in November last year detailing the assassination plot against Pannoon, whom Yadav named as “CC-1”. Another Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, is also charged with conspiracy. Gupta, who was arrested in June last year in Prague, Czech Republic, on the orders of US authorities, is currently in custody in New York and is being investigated. According to the US indictment, Gupta was recruited by Yadav to participate in the said conspiracy in May last year.
On Friday, Gupta sought a public defender. The Chief Justice made no immediate decision on his application and the case was adjourned until January 17 next year.
