New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to the wife of a close aide of slain gangster Vikas Dubey, who allegedly killed eight policemen, who had gone to arrest him in a Kanpur village in July 2020. The court took note of senior lawyer Vivek Tankha that Khushi Dubey was a minor at the time of the offence.
A Bench of CJI DY Chandrachud and Justices S Abdul Nazeer and PS Narasimha also took note of Tankha's plea to grant her a regular bail as the charge sheet has also been filed.
Khushi is the wife of Amar Dubey, who was also killed in the police encounter later. She is also accused of exhorting the armed co-accused to kill the policemen. Her counsel said it is a case of an innocent person at a wrong place at a wrong time as she had married Amar seven days before the July 3 incident.
Eight policemen, including Deputy Superintendent of Police Devendra Mishra, were ambushed at Bikru village in Chaubeypur area of Kanpur, when they were going to arrest Vikas Dubey and fell to hail of bullets shot from rooftops shortly after midnight on July 3, 2020.
Vikas Dubey was killed in an encounter on July 10 when a police vehicle carrying him from Ujjain to Kanpur met with an accident and he tried to escape, police had said.
Khushi Dubey's lawyer Tankha, who was assisted by advocate Sumeer Sodhi, told the court that more than 100 witnesses were to be examined in the case and it was a fit matter for the grant of bail keeping in mind the allegations against her.
The court took note of the fact the accused was “16/17 years of age” at the time of commission of the offence and granted bail saying the trial court would be setting the terms for her release.
The bench said one of the conditions will be that the accused will have to appear before the station house officer (SHO) of the police station concerned once a week besides cooperating in the trial and probe if any.
