Court rejects bail plea of JAP chief

PATNA: The Madhepura district and sessions court on Tuesday rejected the regular bail petition of former MP-cum-Jan Adhikar Party (Loktantrik) chief Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav in a 32-year-old kidnapping case lodged against him.
The court of district judge Ramesh Chand Malviya rejected the bail petition on the ground that Yadav had intentionally misused the privilege of the bail granted to him earlier by not appearing before it for hearing that led to delay in disposal of the case on time.
The court also observed that Yadav may move bail petition again if commitment of the case is not done within six months. It was on December 16, 1993 that an ACJM court in Madhepura had cancelled the bail bond of Yadav in the case after he failed to appear before it for hearing on 26 occasions.
A battery of lawyers, including Manan Kumar Mishra, Manoj Kumar Ambashth and Sanjeev Kumar appeared for Yadav and argued that summons or notices were never served to their client for appearance in the case. They also submitted that the lawyer responsible for representing Yadav had stopped appearing due to which bond was cancelled and he could not know about it.
The court was also apprised that Yadav remained in judicial custody from 1999 to 2013 in a CBI case and he was never remanded in the kidnapping case. The court, however, was not satisfied with the response.
Public prosecutor Indra Kant Chaudhary, opposing all pleas, informed the court that cases against other accused has already been disposed of after commitment, but it could not be done in the case Yadav due to his non-appearance.
The Madhepura ACJM court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Yadav in September last year for not appearing before it for hearing in the kidnapping case registered against him and 10 others with Murliganj police station in 1989.
Yadav was arrested from Patna on March 11. He was initially charged with lockdown violation by Patna police. The JAP chief was set free on personal bond in the case. The police, however, kept him detained on the request of Madhepura police as a non-bailable warrant was pending against him. He was then taken to Madhepura and forwarded to judicial custody after production in a local court.