After spending about 5 months in judicial custody, former senior Paytm executive Sonia Dhawan has been granted bail by the Allahabad High Court. Following the rejection of bail from the district court, Surajpur last month, her lawyer moved to Allahabad High Court.
Now, all four prime accused including Paytm employee Devendra Kumar have been granted bail in the extortion and blackmailing case. While Dhawan’s husband was granted bail in February, Rohit Chomwal-the prime accused who allegedly made extortion calls to Paytm founder’s brother had got stay on his arrest by the Allahabad High Court.
Citing sources, a Moneycontrol report said that the court had accepted Dhawan’s bail application on March 5 and she was released from the judicial custody on March 11.
According to the court order, there is no active role assigned to the applicant and allegations cannot stand concrete.
The Additional Government Advocate (AGA) opposed the bail, however, the court had considered all the facts and circumstances including the nature of the punishment, witnesses, and evidence and ultimately granted the bail application.
Claiming her innocence in the bail application, Dhawan also said that she wasn’t involved in any such activity mentioned in FIR and was wrongly framed in the data theft and extortion case.
She also argued before the district court that WhatsApp chat records between Ajay Shekhar Sharma and Rohit Chomwal could not prove her involvement in the case.
Interestingly, Kumar’s bail wasn’t reported by any media. However, Sonia Dhawan had pleaded before court that her husband and Kumar are out on bail and her bail should be considered under same circumstances revealed a report by Economic Times.
Going forward, it would be crucial to see how court proceedings take place. So far, police have not been able to solve the case in 5 months and the investigating team behind the case is itself under judicial scanner over bribery charges.
Disclaimer: The post has been updated with some inputs from ET.
