PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/ Nainital
The Uttarakhand High Court has rejected the bail applications of Ankita Bhandari murder accused. The accused Pulkit Arya, Saurabh Bhaskar and Ankit Gupta had filed applications seeking bail in the sensational murder case. A division bench of Justice Ravindra Maithani and Justice Sidharth Shah rejected the bail after a two day long hearing in the case.
On Wednesday, the counsels of the three accused placed many arguments in support for grant of the bail but the court rejected them.
Pertinently, the then additional district and sessions judge Reena Joshi had sentenced Arya, Bhaskar and Gupta life imprisonment on May 30, 2025 for being involved in the murder of Ankita Bhandari and destroying the evidence. The accused had filed a special appeal against this order and had requested the HC to grant bail to them.
Ankita Bhandari who was working as a receptionist in Vanantra resort near Rishikesh had gone missing on September 18, 2022. Six days later her body was recovered from the Chila Barrage. The police interrogated the owner of the resort Pulkit Arya and registered a case of murder. The State government constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the case which prepared a 500 page charge sheet and had recorded statements of 100 witnesses in the case. On public demand, chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the sensational case in January this year.
