Bengaluru: NIA court rejects third successive bail plea of accused in RSS worker murder case

A special NIA court here has dismissed the third successive bail application of an accused in the murder of an RSS worker in 2016. Asim Sheriff is the accused number five in the case and has been in custody since November one, 2016.

In his bail plea, he has contended that only 19 of the 117 witnesses have testified in the last five years and there is no witness cited in the charge sheet to testify against him. His bail plea cited the ”case of Kalyan Chandra Sarkar” where the bail was granted after successive pleas.

The Special Court, however, rejected his contention and said in the cited case, the accused had filed the ninth bail application and in this case accused No.5 has filed this bail application for the third time. Hence, this decision is not aptly applicable to the facts and circumstances of the case.”

Moreover, it said that there was no force in the bail argument because the Supreme Court has ”clearly held that successive bail application is maintainable only in changed circumstances, but not on the same grounds.”