Sippy Sidhu murder: Kalyani applies for bail, HC asks parties if they have any objection to hearing

A Punjab and Haryana high court bench on Wednesday asked different parties to submit their responses by August 1 if they had any objections to the assigned bench taking up the bail plea of Kalyani Singh, the daughter of a Himachal Pradesh high court judge, arrested for the murder of national-level shooter and lawyer Sippy Sidhu.

The matter was listed for hearing before justice Anoop Chitkara, who comes from the Himachal Pradesh high court. Kalyani’s mother justice Sabina is currently posted at the Himachal Pradesh high court, but was elevated as judge at the Punjab and Haryana high court.

Kalyani, 36, was arrested on June 15 after she was found “evasive and deceptive” in her responses by the CBI during the probe. The CBI claimed that it had found strong evidence of her presence at the Sector-27 park where Sippy, 34, an old friend of the accused, was shot dead on September 20, 2015. On July 13, a Chandigarh CBI court had rejected her bail plea observing that the investigation was at a crucial stage and there was every apprehension of her pressurising the witnesses.

Her bail plea before the high court argues that the trial court failed to appreciate that the investigating agency had not been able to bring up or point out any new evidence that would indict the petitioner “beyond whatever evidence that was available with them at the time of filing report under Section 173 of the CrPC on December 7, 2020”.

CBI in December 2020 had itself admitted that the “investigation conducted till date revealed no direct evidence” against her. The plea also claims that the petitioner has been targeted only on the basis of allegations levelled by Sippy’s family.

It argues that the court ignored the fact that the petitioner had all these years never tried to influence the witnesses or tamper with the evidence. It has also been argued that CBI has no material evidence to establish that Kalyani had communication with Sippy for a meeting at the Sector-27 park on the fateful day.

Sippy’s family has also become a party to the case and has engaged human rights lawyer and senior advocate RS Bains to represent them in high court.