Two months after his arrest in a ₹5-lakh graft case from October 2023, suspended sub-inspector (SI) Krishan Kumar of Chandigarh Police, has been granted bail by a special CBI court.

Kumar and another SI from the economic offences wing, Hussain Akhtar, were booked under Section 7 of Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code in October 2023 after they had allegedly sought ₹5 lakh bribe from a city resident to clear his brother’s name in a GST fraud case.

The complainant, Ram Mehar Sharma, had told CBI that his brother had been implicated in a GST fraud case after a friend misused his identity documents.

The two cops demanded ₹5 lakh illegal gratification from him, he had alleged, stating that they would initiate proclaimed offender proceedings against his brother if he failed to pay up.

Sharma said he had met the two cops several times in September. Later, the duo directed him to meet a mechanic at the Sector-48 motor market, who sent him back to the two police officials and told him to pay ₹2.5 lakh as the first instalment.

As he didn’t want to pay the bribe, he approached the CBI.

Following this, a trap was laid and Akhtar was arrested after he was caught red-handed accepting the bribe. Kumar, meanwhile, had managed to flee with ₹2.5 lakh.

After giving police the slip for four months, Kumar surrendered before a special CBI court in February this year.

In court, Kumar pleaded that he had been falsely implicated and that the co-accused had already been granted the concession of bail. Also, the trial will take a long time to conclude and the witnesses to be examined were mostly official. Hence, no chance of the accused pressuring them in any manner arose.

Opposing the bail plea, CBI said in case the accused was released on bail, he was most likely to pressure the witnesses and thus hamper the subsequent trial.

Observing that no useful purpose will be served by keeping the accused in custody, the court granted him bail against bail bonds of ₹50,000 with one surety of same amount.