A special court on Sunday heard the concluding arguments on the bail plea of right wing lawyer Sanjeev Punalekar, who was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the 2013 murder of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar. Additional Sessions Judge R.M. Pande said the order on Mr. Punalekar’s bail plea will be passed on July 5.
Presenting the results of Mr. Punalekar’s psychoanalysis test before the court, the counsel for the CBI urged the court against granting bail to the advocate, who is the counsel for Sanatan Sanstha, on grounds that he could tamper with the evidence.
Stating that the prosecution’s contention was exaggerated, Virendra Ichalkaranjikar, Mr. Punalekar’s counsel, said right from the beginning of its investigation against the accused, the CBI has erroneously cast him in the role of a ‘sadhak’ of the Sanatan Sanstha and not as a lawyer.
“Furthermore, there is nothing incriminating, or intimidating, in the letter retrieved by the CBI, which Mr. Punalekar had written to Dabholkar in 2012,” Mr. Ichalkaranjikar said.
Mr. Punalekar and his aide, Sanatan Sanstha member Vikram Bhave, were arrested by the CBI on May 25 after the agency alleged that the duo participated in the conspiracy to murder Dabholkar, especially in destruction of evidence and in aiding and abetting Sachin Andure and Sharad Kalaskar — named by the agencies as Dabholkar’s killers.
After two custodial spells with the CBI, the court on June 20 had acceded to the agency’s request seeking Mr. Punalekar’s custody for a third time.
The agency said it needed to interrogate the lawyer on allegedly incriminating documents and files seized from his laptop during his arrest on May 25.
On June 23, the CBI told the court that it did not require any further custody of Mr. Punalekar, following which the judge sent the accused to judicial remand.
In his statement to the CBI last year, Mr. Kalaskar, who was recently interrogated in connection with the Govind Pansare murder, had allegedly said that Mr. Punalekar, known for his defamatory statements against Dabholkar, had asked him to destroy the weapons.
According to the CBI, Mr. Kalaskar had revealed that it was Thane-based Mr. Bhave, who had allegedly planned the reconnaissance and had pointed out Dabholkar to the assailants. The agency claimed that Mr. Bhave had even planned the getaway route for the shooters after the crime.
Dabholkar was shot dead while out for his morning stroll on Pune’s Omkareshwar Bridge on August 20, 2013.