Fan murder case: Court quashes bail pleas of Darshan, Pavithra Gowda

Bengaluru, Oct 14 : A Bengaluru court on Monday quashed the bail petitions of jailed Kannada superstar Darshan and his partner Pavithra Gowda in connection with the sensational murder case of Renukaswamy -- a fan of Darshan.

Darshan and Pavithra Gowda will now have to approach the High Court for the bail plea.

Sources close to Darshan said that a petition will be filed before the High Court on Tuesday.

The court also quashed the bail petition of the eleventh accused Nagaraj and the twelfth accused Laxman.

The court has reserved the order over the bail petitions of other accused persons, Pradosh S Rao, Vinay and Jagadish for October 16.

Judge Jaishankar also allowed the bail petition of the eighth accused Ravishankar and the thirteenth accused Deepak.

Darshan, Pavithra Gowda and 15 others were arrested on June 11 on charges of kidnapping and brutally murdering Renukaswamy from Chitradurga.

Renukaswamy had allegedly sent derogatory and obscene messages to Pavithra Gowda.

Meanwhile, Darshan's supporters, fans and family members who had gathered outside the Ballary prison to welcome him had to return without getting the opportunity to catch a glimpse of their favourite star coming out of the prison.

The police had erected barricades to control the fans and female fans had also come near the prison in good numbers.

Darshan was shifted to Ballary prison after photos of 'royal treatment' of him at the Bengaluru Central Prison surfaced. He is facing three FIRs in this connection.

According to sources, the family members of Darshan were all set to take him in a special helicopter to Bengaluru from Ballary. They were expecting that he would be given bail.

Criminal lawyer C.V. Nagesh had appeared for Darshan and dubbed the police charges as planted.

He even termed the investigation a classic failure and compared the charges in the chargesheet to the story of 'Arabian Nights'.

Darshan highlighted that there was a deliberate delay in conducting a postmortem of the body of Renukaswamy and recording the statements of eyewitnesses.

Counsel Nagesh had highlighted that he was placing his arguments for the acquittal of Darshan but was making submissions to get bail in the case to Darshan.

Special Public Prosecutor Prasanna Kumar, known for handling high-profile cases, had vehemently argued that the bail petition of Darshan should not be accepted.

He had rebutted the arguments against the police investigation and submitted before the court that Darshan in his statement had confessed to kicking Renukaswamy's chest.

The counsel also referred to the incident as Darshan's "Rakta Charitra" and also stated that he was aware of the conspiracy to kidnap Renukaswamy from Chitradurga.

The police had submitted a 3,991-page charge sheet on September 4.