Farmer suicide case: Uttarakhand High Court stays arrest of 26 accused

Nainital, Jan 16 (PTI) The Uttarakhand High Court on Friday stayed the arrest of 26 accused people in the alleged suicide of a farmer in Udham Singh Nagar district and asked the state government to file a reply.

A vacation bench of Justice Ashish Naithani fixed the next hearing of the case for April 15.

Sukhwant Singh, a resident of Paiga village in the district, allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in a hotel room in Haldwani, Nainital district, in the early hours of January 11.

Sukhwant's brother, Parvinder Singh, later filed a complaint against 26 people, including six women, in connection with the alleged suicide, and a case was registered by the police.

Subsequently, accused Kulwinder Singh, a resident of Udham Singh Nagar district, and others filed a petition in the high court seeking a stay on their arrest and quashing of the FIR registered against them.

The petitioners argued that they had no connection with the case and that there was no dispute between them.

Before committing suicide, Sukhwant Singh had posted a video on social media, alleging that he had been cheated of approximately Rs 4 crore in a land deal and that the police, instead of taking action on his complaint, sided with the alleged fraudsters. PTI COR DPT AMJ AMJ