Nainital, Aug 19 The Uttarakhand High Court on Wednesday rejected the bail pleas of the three convicts—Pulkit Arya, Saurabh Bhaskar, and Ankit Gupta—who were sentenced to life imprisonment by a lower court in the high-profile Ankita Bhandari murder case.
A division bench comprising Justice Ravindra Maithani and Justice Siddharth Shah delivered the verdict after a detailed hearing on their bail petitions.
On May 30 last year, the then Additional District and Sessions Judge of Kotdwar had sentenced the three to life imprisonment after finding them guilty of murder and destruction of evidence.
The three subsequently challenged the verdict in the High Court and sought release on bail while their appeals remained pending.
Ankita Bhandari, a 19-year-old working as a receptionist at the Vanantara Resort near Rishikesh, went missing under suspicious circumstances on September 18, 2022. Her body was later recovered from the Chilla Canal on September 24.
Following a police investigation that revealed the involvement of resort owner Arya and two employees—Gupta and Bhaskar—a case was registered against them, and they were arrested. All three have been in jail since then.
The prosecution argued that the evidence gathered regarding the incident was duly substantiated during the trial and was sufficient to uphold the conviction of the three accused.
