Sippy Murder Case: CBI court rejects bail application of Kalyani Singh

Chandigarh, July 13

Observing that at the stage of deciding a bail application, the merit of the case and evidence are not to be discussed in detail, Special Judge of the CBI court Jagjit Singh today dismissed the bail plea of Kalyani Singh, arrested for the murder of Sukhmanpreet Singh Sidhu, alias Sippy Sidhu.

The court said the CBI had been ordered by the magistrate court to file a fresh report. New evidence had come up after the CBI had filed an ‘untraced’ report earlier. The investigation was still on and for that reason, the accused was remanded in police custody. However, as per the CBI, the accused was not cooperating much. The investigation was at a crucial stage, as the weapon of offence and co-accused were yet to be arrested, it said.

The court observed there was no dispute about the accused being an influential person. Now that she has been named as an accused and arrested, there was apprehension of her pressurising witnesses and tampering with evidence if released on bail, it said.

“If during this crucial stage, the accused is released on bail, prosecution witnesses can be pressurised, and evidence can be tampered with, which would hamper the subsequent trial, and as a result at this stage, no ground is made out to allow the bail application filed, and the same is accordingly dismissed,” the court said.

Kalyani was arrested on June 15 after she was called to join probe by the CBI. Sidhu, an advocate, was shot in a Sector 27 park on the night of September 20, 2015. The case was transferred to the CBI in 2016. The CBI filed an untraced report in December 2020, which was not accepted by court. The court directed the CBI to continue further investigation.