Yashwant Sinha granted bail, set to walk out of jail soon

A day after veteran Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani met him at Hazaribagh jail, Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday secured bail from a local court having spent a fortnight in prison following his refusal to seek relief after his arrest during a power crisis stir.

Chief Judicial Magistrate R B Pal granted the bail after Sinha’s counsel Anil Kumar Sinha and Raj Kumar Raju moved the bail petition. Sinha was in judicial remand from June 3 in connection with an alleged assault of a government official in Hazaribagh the previous day.   

After meeting Sinha in jail, Advani had told reporters on Tuesday that Sinha should leave jail after securing bail and lead the ongoing agitation by BJP against the power crisis in Jharkhand. He added that Sinha was also the right person to be chief minister after the assembly elections later this year.

Sinha and several of his supporters were arrested on June 2 after Jharkhand State Electricity Board General Manager (Hazaribagh branch) Dhanesh Jha filed an FIR accusing them of tying him up during their demonstration near his office.

The following day the court remanded Sinha and others to judicial custody for 14 days after all the accused refused to seek bail. The court extended their remand till June 28 after they stayed away from moving bail again on June 16.

On June 12, BJP leaders Shahnawaz Hussain and Rajiv Pratap Rudy as emissaries of BJP president Rajnath Singh had urged Sinha to obtain bail and participate in the party’s statewide agitation. Besides Sinha, all his supporters were also granted bail by the court on Wednesday.