New Delhi, May 10: A chargesheet has been filed against former Haryana minister Gopal Kanda and his aide Aruna Chadha in the Geetika Sharma suicide case. The court says prima facie charges of rape, unnatural sex, abetment of suicide, conspiracy, forgery under the IPC and IT act have been made out against Kanda.
Kanda and Chadha have been chargesheeted under section 306 (abetment to suicide), 120 B (criminal conspiracy), 506 (criminal intimidation), 201 (destruction of evidence), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery with intention to cheat), 469 (forgery with intention to harm reputation) and 471 (using forged documents as genuine) of Indian Penal Code (IPC). They have also been booked under section 66-A of the Information and Technology Act which deals with hacking of computers.
In judicial custody since August 2012, Kanda and Chadha were named by 23-year-old airhostess Geetika in her suicide letter in 2012. Geetika, who was earlier employed with Kanda's MLDR airlines, was found dead on August 5 at her Ashok Vihar residence in North West Delhi. In her August 4 suicide note, Geetika had said she was ending her life due to "harassment" by Kanda and Chada. Kanda, 46, was forced to resign from his post of minister of state for home following the registration of case.
Police had in its chargesheet said that Kanda was obsessed with Geetika and he and Chadha had unleashed "a series of wilful and malicious acts of mental torture, threat, blackmail and stress" on her which led her to take the extreme step and that pressure was created on her mind to make her submit to the "illegal and lustful wishes of Kanda".
In its supplementary chargesheet, the police had said that its probe showed that Kanda tried to get back Geetika from Emirates Airlines with "the ulterior motive of sexually exploiting her". It had also submitted that Chada had also taken Geetika for abortion at a private clinic in south Delhi. The doctor had also been made a prosecution witness.
During the arguments on framing of charges, Mohan had said that suicide notes of Geetika and that of her mother who ended her life February 15, 2012 should be considered as concrete evidence against the accused.
Geetika's mother Anuradha Sharma had also left behind two notes in which she blamed the duo for driving her daughter to take such an extreme step. Kanda, however, had denied the charges while Chadha had been contending that she was a mere employee of the former minister.
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