HC denies bail to woman for role in extortion call

Delhi High Court on Thursday denied granting anticipatory bail to a woman demanding extortion money from a man.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court refused to grant anticipatory bail to a woman accused of threatening and demanding extortion money from a man, recently.

Dismissing the anticipatory bail plea, the single-judge Bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait said, "Keeping in view the serious allegations against the petitioner and that her custodial interrogation is required for recovery of the mobile phone to establish whether she was on conference call with co-accused Gauri Kant Dixit and the complainant, herein the court is not inclined to grant anticipatory bail to the petitioner."

Petitioner Bharati Khanna has been booked under Section 387, 506, 34 of the Indian Penal Code over the complaint from Vijay Singh Chauhan, a resident of South Delhi's Neb Sarai area.

In his complaint, Chauhan said he was bedridden, had vision issues due to which he couldn't see. He got a call on his mobile phone at 11.44 p.m. on March 9. The caller refused to disclose his identity, but threatened to kill the complainant and kidnap his grownup daughters, Pari and Pihu from their school and demanded Rs 5 crore.

When the caller shared information about Chauhan's daughters and their school, he got scared and asked the caller from where he got his mobile number and information on his family.

The caller said he got the phone number and other information from Khanna, the petitioner, who worked was as computer operator for the complainant in 2016-17.

During the investigation, Chauhan told the police petitioner Bharati worked in his office four-five years ago. She had knowledge of his business and family members, and visited his house during family functions. After some time, he shut his office due to vision loss and she left the job.

Chauhan said Dixit (co-accused) contacted him over phone and said he was speaking from the BJP office. He said Khanna had filed a complaint involving Rs 4-5 crore. On this, Chauhan said he had not taken any money from Khanna.

On March 8-9 night, Dixit called again and threatened of dire consequences if he didn't pay up.

This time, Dixit and Khanna made a conference call to complainant. The phone was answered by complainant's wife who asked them the reason for calling at night. Dixit asked her to give the phone to her husband. An argument took place, during which Dixit also abused and threatened the complainant's wife. (IANS report)