[ad_1]
The Bombay High Court on Monday refused to grant bail and suspend sentence to artist Chintan Upadhyay pending his appeal against his conviction for abetting and conspiring the murder of his estranged wife Hema Upadhyay and her lawyer Harish Bhambhani in 2015.
Chintan was sentenced to life imprisonment by the sessions court on October 10, which he has challenged before the High Court. He had also filed an interim application, seeking release on bail, pending his appeal, which was rejected on Monday.
A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Gauri V Godse rejected Chintan’s interim plea seeking release on bail pending his appeal and said that prima facie there was sufficient ground to show his involvement in the crime.
Chintan, in his plea, had claimed that the trial court convicted him based only on the confession of his co-accused Pradeep Rajbhar. His plea also said while the trial court concluded that the other co-accused had no independent motive to kill Hema, who was also an artist, and hence Chintan was involved in the conspiracy, there could not be an inference to convict him.
Chintan has claimed that the court had observed it could not rely on sketches and paintings made by Chintan to show that he was involved. He has submitted that the confession was retracted by Rajbhar, and the court should not rely on it solely in such a case as only circumstantial evidence was not permissible under the law.
Senior advocate Amit Desai, while representing Chintan, had argued there was hardly any evidence to implicate Chintan in the case, which the trial court should have looked into.
However, Additional Public Prosecutor J P Yagnik, representing the state government, and advocate Anil Lala, who represented the Bhambhani family, opposed the plea and apprised the court of the evidence in the case that stood against Chintan, including statements of witnesses amongst others.
On December 11, 2015, the bodies of Hema and Bhambhani were found dumped in a nullah in Kandivali. The Dindoshi sessions court had found Chintan guilty of abetting and conspiring the murder of Hema, with three others, Pradeep, Vijay, and Shivkumar. The court had also found him guilty of killing Hema and Bhambhani, along with other charges.
Chintan, who has spent six years in jail since his arrest in 2015, was granted bail by the Supreme Court in 2021. Following his conviction, Chintan was arrested and sent to jail again.
[ad_2]
