Delhi gangrape: Court denies bail to bus owner

New Delhi: The owner of the bus in which the 23-year-old paramedic was gangraped and brutally assaulted along with his male friend on December 16, was on Tuesday denied bail in a case of alleged forgery committed by him to get his vehicles registered here.

Metropolitan Magistrate Chhavi Kapoor dismissed the bail plea of Dinesh Yadav, arrested by the police for allegedly submitting false documents for registration of his vehicles. The court denied the bail saying the forged documents furnished by the accused are to be sent to Forensic Science Laboratory for obtaining expert opinion and the probe is still at an initial stage.

"Keeping in view the nature and gravity of the allegations and the fact that investigation is at preliminary stages, I am not inclined to grant bail to the accused at this stage," the court said.

Yadav, 35, was arrested on January 2 on charges of cheating, criminal conspiracy and giving false statement on oath. He had allegedly submitted false information to the State Transport Department to get the registration certificate and the permit for the bus. Yadav was accused of submitting copies of his driving licence, bank pass book, LIC policy and other documents claiming that he is a resident of Burari, Delhi while he was not residing at that address.

His counsel JJ Tyagi told the court that the police has no evidence against his client and that he had used the given address only with the permission of the owner. The court noted that the statement of the owner of the premises, Anant Gupta, whose address was mentioned in the documents, "blatantly denied" to the police that he had allowed Yadav to use his address for any purposes.

Police told the court that despite being a permanent resident of Uttar Pradesh, Yadav illegally and dishonestly used forged copies of Gupta residential address to get licence/ permit for running his buses in Delhi. It also said that during the probe it was found that Yadav had used forged documents to get ten buses registered from the transport authority, Rajpur.

Meanwhile, the court had yesterday granted bail to Yadav's co-accused Rakam Singh, a tout, who the police said had helped Yadav get his vehicles registered.