Espionage case: Court dismisses YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra's default bail plea

Hisar (Haryana), Sep 3 (PTI) A court here on Wednesday dismissed the default bail plea of YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra, who was arrested in May on suspicion of espionage.

"The default bail application, which was filed recently before the court, has been dismissed. A detailed order is awaited," Her lawyer, Kumar Mukesh, said.

On Tuesday, the court of Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Sunil Kumar had extended Malhotra's judicial custody till September 10.

Malhotra, who hails from Hisar and ran a YouTube channel 'Travel with JO', was arrested by the Hisar Police on May 16.

Police have filed a 2,500-page chargesheet in the case.

Mukesh recently filed a petition seeking her release on default bail, claiming that a complete challan was presented by the police within the stipulated 90-day period and the investigation in the case is not complete.

After Wednesday's court hearing, Mukesh said that the court also decided on some of the pleas filed by the prosecution.

He said on one of these pleas, the court ordered that no part of the charge sheet can be published by the media or circulated and clear directions in this regard were given both to the prosecution and the defence counsels.

Also, Mukesh said, the prosecution submitted before the court that the charge sheet containing certain confidential and sensitive portions should not be supplied to Malhotra, a plea which the court allowed, he said.

"They had submitted that a copy of another charge sheet be given to her in which the confidential and sensitive portion has been removed by the prosecution," Mukesh said.

"The defence submitted that if Malhotra is not supplied a complete challan (charge sheet copy), how would she prepare her defence. We argued that if the sensitive part is not to be given to us, then it should not form part of the challan," said the lawyer.

Malhotra was arrested at the New Aggarsain Extension and booked under provisions of the Official Secrets Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

On June 9, a court here had rejected her regular bail plea.

Police had then opposed the bail, arguing that the investigation in the case was still underway.

The Hisar Police had earlier said no evidence emerged to indicate that Malhotra had access to any military or defence-related information, but claimed she had been in contact with some people and was aware that they were Pakistani intelligence operatives.

Police sources said she was in touch with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, a staffer at the Pakistani High Commission, since November 2023.

India expelled Danish on May 13 for allegedly indulging in espionage.

In May, police claimed that Malhotra was being groomed as an "asset" by Pakistani intelligence operatives. PTI SUN VN VN