Suspended judge's husband moves court for bail in graft case

New Delhi: The husband of a judicial officer, arrested in a graft case in which she was allegedly caught by CBI while accepting bribe, has moved a special court seeking bail.

The bail plea of accused Alok Lakhanpal, the husband of Rachna Tiwari Lakhanpal who was a senior civil judge at the Tis Hazari Court here, would come up for hearing tomorrow before Special CBI Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal.

Besides Alok, co-accused and an advocate Vishal Mehan has also approached the court seeking bail in the case. Both Alok, a practicing lawyer, and Vishal are in judicial custody.

The court had earlier granted bail to Rachna Tiwari Lakhanpal, who was suspended after her arrest, considering that there was nobody to look after her two minor kids as her husband was also under incarceration.

The judicial officer, her husband and Vishal were arrested by CBI on the night of September 28.

According to CBI, the judge and her husband were arrested while allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs four lakh from Vishal, who was appointed as local commissioner in a case adjudicated by her, at her residence.

CBI had claimed that during searches at the judge's residence, Rs 94 lakh case was seized by it along with two locker keys and other material.

"A case was registered under Prevention of Corruption Act against the advocate on a complaint alleging that in a matter being heard by a Senior Civil Judge (West), Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi, she had appointed him (Vishal) as local commissioner for conducting an inspection of the disputed property and submitting his report."

"The advocate (appointed as LC) allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs two lakh for himself as well as Rs 20 lakh for the said senior civil judge for deciding the matter in favour of the complainant," it had said.

CBI had said its teams laid a trap at the designated place where the bribe was to be allegedly paid by Vishal.

As the bribe was being allegedly paid, CBI teams swung into action and nabbed Vishal while he was "receiving" Rs five lakh purportedly on behalf of the judge, it had claimed.

The team then took the accused advocate to the judge's residence where he allegedly handed over Rs five lakh to Lakhanpal while she gave Rs one lakh to the lawyer as his cut, the agency claimed, adding that the alleged bribe money was also recovered by CBI.