Uttarakhand Receptionist Murder Case: High Court Rejects CBI Probe Request

The Nainital High Court on Wednesday rejected the petition related to the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) probe in the Ankita Bhandari murder case.

A single bench of senior judge Sanjay Kumar Mishra, Uttarakhand High Court, dismissed the petition seeking a CBI investigation in the Ankita Bhandari murder case. The single judge bench said that the SIT team is doing satisfactory work in the Ankita Bhandari murder case.

On November 4, Ankita's mother Sona Devi, and father Virender Singh Bhandari filed a petition in the Nainital High Court, seeking an inquiry by the CBI into the case.

Recently, Uttarakhand Police filed a chargesheet against the three people accused in the murder of 19-year-old Ankita Bhandari and submitted it before the Kotdwar Judicial Court.

The body of 19-year-old Ankita, who worked as a receptionist at a resort run by Pulkit Arya, the son of expelled BJP leader Vinod Arya, was recovered from Chilla canal in Rishikesh on September 24.

She was reported missing for at least six days before the officials found her body.

Pulkit Arya was arrested for allegedly pushing her into the canal following an altercation. Two more people - Ankit Gupta and Saurabh Bhaskar, have also been arrested in the case.

On December 4, the Uttarakhand Police said that the investigation into the Ankita Bhandari murder case is almost complete with just the Narco tests of the accused remaining, for which they had sought permission from the Kotdwar court to conduct Narco and Polygraph tests of all three accused.

Of these three accused persons, two had given their consent for the test while the other one had sent an application to the Court of Judicial Magistrate Kotdwar, Uttarkhand.

The Pushkar Singh Dhami government has also invoked the Gangster Act against the three accused.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)