Jaitley phone tapping case: Constable denied bail

A Delhi court on Tuesday dismissed the bail application of Delhi Police constable Arvind Dabas, who, along with three others, had been arrested in connection to the Arun Jaitley phone tapping case.

"The bail application is dismissed," said Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Amit Bansal.

Dabas had moved the court seeking bail, saying there was no direct evidence against him and he had been falsely implicated in the case by the police. He had alleged that he had become a "victim of the system".

He was arrested on February 14 for allegedly trying to access Jaitley's call details. According to the police, Dabas had used the official email ID of an assistant commissioner of police to send a request to a mobile service provider for the call detail records of the Bharatiya Janata Party leader.

His counsel Naushad Ahmad Khan had argued that there was no direct evidence to book his client under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and the offences he had been charged with by the Special Cell of the Delhi police were bailable.

The police, on the other hand, had opposed his bail plea and had argued that offences of forgery under IPC may be made out against the four accused, including Dabas, which were non-bailable and the constable should not be granted relief.

Besides Dabas, three private detectives – Anurag -- who is alleged to be the main conspirator and Neeraj and Nitish have also been arrested. All of them are in judicial custody till March 20.

All the accused have been booked for criminal conspiracy and cheating under IPC and Section 66 of the IT Act for computer hacking.

During the arguments held in-camera on the bail plea, the police had said that offences under sections 464 (making a false document), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC may be made out against the accused in the case.

The police had also said that the chain of events in the case was ‘complete’, which showed ‘criminality’ on the part of the accused and the investigation in the case was still going on.

According to the police, Dabas was the first to be arrested, followed by the others.