The Supreme Court on Wednesday cancelled bail to two-time Olympic medallist wrestler Sushil Kumar in the murder case of former junior national wrestling champion Sagar Dhankar at the Chhatrasal Stadium in the national capital.
What did the court say?
A bench of justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra set aside the March 4 order of the Delhi High Court granting bail to the wrestler. The wrestler has been asked to surrender within a week.
Reading out the operative part of the judgment, Justice Karol allowed the petition filed by Sagar’s father assailing the bail order. The judge said that Kumar must surrender within one week.
Senior counsel Siddharth Mridul represented the deceased’s father, Ashok Dhankad, while senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani appeared for Kumar in the top court.
Why did Kumar attack Dhankar?
Kumar and others are accused of fatally assaulting Dhankar in May 2021 over an alleged property dispute. Two of Dhankar’s friends were also injured in the assault. According to the postmortem report, Dhankar suffered cerebral damage from the impact of a blunt object.
Tracing the case’s history
In October 2022, a Delhi trial court framed charges against Kumar and 17 co-accused under multiple provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including murder, rioting, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, robbery, and offences under the Arms Act.
The incident sparked a massive manhunt for the Olympian, who evaded arrest for 18 days by moving across Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Haryana. Delhi Police finally apprehended him in the city’s Mundka area when he arrived to collect cash, travelling on a scooty borrowed from a national-level athlete.
Following his arrest on May 23, 2021, Kumar was suspended from his Railways job and placed in judicial custody, where he remained until his bail order.
In his bail plea before the high court, Kumar argued that he had already spent three and a half years in jail and that the trial was unlikely to conclude soon, given that only 31 of the 222 prosecution witnesses had been examined so far. The high court, taking note of the prolonged incarceration and slow pace of the trial, had granted him bail.
Kumar had won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a silver at the 2012 London Games.