Darshan misusing Court’s sympathy; cancel his interim bail: State tells Karnataka High Court

The Karnataka government on Friday urged the Karnataka High Court on Friday to cancel the interim medical bail granted to actor Darshan Thogudeepa, the prime accused in the Renukaswamy murder case..Special Public Prosecutor Prasanna Kumar told single-judge Justice S Viswajith Shetty that five weeks have already passed since grant of medical bail to Darshan to enable him to undergo a surgery.Yet, there was no update on when such surgery will take place, Kumar said.Kumar further argued that Darshan was misusing the Court’s sympathy and therefore, the Court must ask him to surrender first and only then continue hearing the regular bail plea filed by him. Kumar said that while Darshan’s counsel and doctors were claiming that his surgery had been delayed as his blood pressure levels were fluctuating, he himself had checked with another doctor and confirmed that in such cases, a patient is given medication to stabilise his blood pressure and get him ready for surgery..“For five weeks, they are not doing anything. My submission is that the interim bail should be cancelled. And ask him (Darshan) to surrender and then consider his regular bail application. There is misuse of the sympathy shown by this Court,” Kumar said..Justice Shetty however, asked how the State could ask for cancellation of interim bail midway through the arguments on Darshan’s regular bail plea.“You could have filed an application to cancel the bail. Now that arguments have commenced (on the regular bail plea), how can you say that surrender first and then hear the bail application,” the Court said and directed Kumar to continue with his arguments..The dead body of 33-year-old auto-driver Renukaswamy was found on June 9. It is alleged that he died owing to injuries sustained in an attack carried out on Darshan's instructions. The actor allegedly called upon his fans to accost and kidnap Renukaswamy for making derogatory comments against his partner Pavithra Gowda on social media.Darshan was arrested on June 11 and was lodged in the Ballari Prison.Darshan and his co-accused then applied for regular bail from the High Court challenging an order of the sessions court in Bengaluru that rejected their bail applications on October 14 this year.The High Court on October 30 granted him medical bail for six weeks to undergo surgery..Kumar today took the Court through the call records of all the accused persons in the case and said that the call logs showed that Darshan, his co-accused and partner Pavithra Gowda and the other accused were all in regular touch with each other since June 6, three days before Renukaswamy was allegedly killed.Kumar further said that the chargesheet indicated that after Renukaswamy sent Gowda lewd messages on Instagram, she gave him her manager’s number and claimed it was her personal number. She then asked him for his number and his residential address. Darshan, Gowda, her manager Pavan and all other accused in the case then made a plan to get Renukaswamy from his hometown Chithradurga to Bengaluru..“On June 6, there are calls between accused persons. On June 8, accused number four, six, and seven followed the deceased. They accosted the deceased near a petrol pump and there accused number 8 also joined them. All of them then forced Renukaswamy to get inside a vehicle. They told him that accused number one and two (Darshan and Gowda) wanted to see him and they will let him go after that,” Kumar said.Kumar told the Court that the above chain of events meant the offence of kidnapping stood established. The SPP also said that the prosecution had several eye witnesses who could attest to such kidnapping..Darshan’s counsel, Senior Advocate CV Nagesh had earlier told the Court that all evidence against him in the case was fabricated by the prosecution.Gowda’s counsel had told the Court that she was not involved in the incident at all and that she was not a party to any conspiracy to either abduct or kill Renukaswamy..The High Court will hear further arguments in the case on December 9.