Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, July 25: In a case of abetting the suicide of former air hostess Geetika Sharma, Delhi’s Rouse Avenue court on Tuesday acquitted former Haryana Minister Gopal Kanda and his aide Aruna Chadha.
If the police filed an appeal against his acquittal, the court ordered Gopal Kanda to show up in person and deposit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh.
Geetika Sharma, a former air hostess for Gopal Kanda’s MLDR airlines who eventually rose to the position of director for one of his companies, was discovered dead on August 5, 2012, at her Ashok Vihar residence in northwest Delhi.
She claimed in her suicide letter dated August 4 that Gopal Kanda and another person had “harassed” her, which was why she was taking her own life.
Gopal Kanda, a 46-year-old minister in the former Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government of Haryana, is a prominent politician and businessman. After the complaint was registered, he was forced to resign from his position as minister of state for home.
He is the head of the Haryana Lokhit Party and an MLA for Haryana’s Sirsa Assembly constituency.
Ankit, Geetika Sharma’s brother, commented on the verdict by expressing how “very depressed” the family felt.
A number of Indian Penal Code (IPC) offences, including 306 (abetment of suicide), 506 (criminal intimidation), 201 (destruction of evidence), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 466 (forgery), were used to prosecute Gopal Kanda.
Additionally, accusations of rape (376) and 377 (unnatural sex) had been brought against him by a trial court, but the Delhi High Court quashed them.
