CHANDIGARH, Sept 27: The Akbar sword case today came up in the court of UT District and Sessions Judge B.S. Bedi for arguments on the application for cancellation of bails of the accused. The case was, however, adjourned after accused Harinder Singh Mader and A.K. Srivastava sought time to file their reply on the same.It may be recalled here that the accused had surrendered before the court on August 12 to join investigation and were later sent to six-day police custody. They were bailed out on August 19 by UT Judicial Magistrate (Ist Class) Paramvir Nijjar who held that no useful purpose would be solved by remanding the accused to police custody.Following the bail, complainant Iqbal Singh Gill moved an application for cancellation of bail in the court of UT DSJ.Interestingly, the complainant, in the said application, maintained that "allowing of the bail to the accused has resulted in grave miscarriage of justice."Allegation against the accused was that the demand draft of Rs 2.5 crore which he gave in lieu of the said sword was returned with the objection "it was never issued by the issuing branch."It needs to be mentioned here that during the earlier hearings, counsel for the accused raised certain points questioning the validity of the complainant's claim about the sword. He argued that there was no document on record to show that the sword in question was a national treasure. It was further stated that the complainant Iqbal Singh Gill did not possess a licence to that effect either. Also, there was nothing on record to state that Gill wanted to make the said transaction of Rs 2.5 crore value.Kharar lawyer case: No evidence collectedAnticipatory bail of a Kharar lawyer, Vijay Agnihotri, and his father, Sat Parkash Sharma, booked earlier on charges of fraud, is to continue with a city court today holding that as per the prosecution report, no evidence so far has been collected against the present applicants.UT Additional District and Sessions Judge S.S. Lamba further held that if the applicants are sought to be arrested, investigating officer of the case should give a five-day notice to them so that they can approach the court for proper remedy.It may be recalled that on September 21 the court had stayed the arrest of the applicants and had asked the prosecution to file its report by today.Arguing over the anticipatory bail plea on the last date, counsel for the accused had submitted that the bail is being sought on the apprehension that the complainant, Savitri Chenia, may try to falsely implicate the applicants. It was also submitted that while the complainant had entered into a transaction with the Northern Housing Development Corporation (whose chairman is accused's elder brother) in April 1995, applicant Vijay Agnihotri had resigned from the board of directors on February 11, 1995. It was added that Sat Parkash Sharma was never on the board of directors of the said company.Complainant Savitri, it may be mentioned, had alleged that the money she invested in the company was not returned on maturity.Hearing on bail pleas of unarrested officers on Oct 1Bail applications of the three accused who were not arrested in case FIR number 1 dated March 16, 1999, which pertained to the preparation of highly inflated estimates of works prepared by officials of the UT Engineering Department, came up today for arguments in the court of UT District and Sessions Judge B. S. Bedi.The case was, however, further adjourned to October 1.The applicants in question are A.S. Gulati, Additional Superintending Engineer, working as Under Secretary to the Chief Engineer, H.S. Brar, Executive Engineer and V.K. Narula, Head Draftsman.
