New Delhi, June 6
Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju had assured the Supreme Court last month that security of the alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, currently lodged at the high-security Tihar Jail, will be taken care of, but the latter has alleged that he was 'yet again' assaulted by the prison officials.
"Despite assurance on May 13, Chandrashekhar was assaulted by a policeman in jail on the same day in the evening. Thereafter, he was also admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital," his lawyer Ashok Singh told IANS.
He said that the court was again informed of the matter, but no urgent hearing was allowed due to its summer vacation.
Chandrashekhar was arrested last year for allegedly cheating and extorting money from some high-profile people, which includes former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh's wife Aditi Singh. Many women Bollywood actors and models have been questioned by the Enforcement Directorate for their alleged links to Chandrashekhar.
In April, he was arrested in another money laundering case linked to the 2017 Election Commission bribery case, which allegedly involved a former AIADMK leader and others.
Chandrashekhar has, multiple times, claimed a threat to his life inside the prison. In a handwritten complaint lodged by him, through his lawyer, at the Hari Nagar Police station on March 9, he alleged that the jail officials are threatening to kill him if he does not fulfil their demands.
"I face danger.....as the whole jail administration is involved in my ongoing case with EOW," an excerpt from the complaint, accessed by IANS read.
It was yet to be learnt whether any FIR was lodged in the given complaint.
Advocate Singh said Chandrashekar is always complaining that he is incarcerated in the same jail where he has filed complaints against several officials. "He has constantly been threatened, coerced and tortured to get retracted from his statement against alleged tainted prison officials," Singh said.
In an interim application filed by Singh in the Supreme Court after the May 13 assault, it was submitted that his client suffered severe pain on his right hand and his blood pressure fell low. "Thereafter the petitioner was taken to the Deen Dayal hospital at 4.00 a.m. on May 14 where he was treated. After an X-ray, a tissue tear was found," the application read.
A Supreme Court bench has listed the matter for further hearing in this week commencing from June 6, however, the matter has not been listed for Monday.
Born in a lower middle-class family in Bengaluru, Chandrashekhar always dreamt of being a millionaire and to achieve his wish, he was determined to earn money by hook or by crook. He started conning people from the age of 17.
In 2007, posing as a high ranking bureaucrat, Sukesh duped around 100 people of Rs 75 crore on the pretext of providing them a job.
Recently, he duped politician T.T.V. Dhinakaran of Rs 50 crore.
Delhi Police's Crime Branch arrested him on Dhinakaran's complaint and he was lodged in the Tihar Jail, but continued to run his extortion racket from inside the prison. He is accused of extorting Rs 200 crore from the family of ex-Fortis Healthcare and Ranbaxy Lab promoters Shivinder and Malvinder Singh from the premises of the prison.
The Delhi Police had, in November 2021, filed a charge sheet against the accused conman, his wife Leena Maria Paul and 12 others in the same case of duping Malvinder Singh's wife of Rs 200 crore.
The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) had written to Tihar Jail authorities to take action against 82 jail officials who allegedly helped him by providing him luxurious facilities inside the prison.
