Uttarakhand HC adjourns hearing in Balkrishna case to Sept 15

NAINITAL: The Uttarakhand High Court today adjourned the hearing in a cheating case involving yoga guru Ramdev's close aide Balkrishna, who is accused of using fake educational certificate for procuring a passport.

As the matter came up before Justice Tarun Agrawal, he fixed September 15 as the next date of hearing.

Earlier, on July 29, the court had stayed the arrest of Balkrishna, and asked him to cooperate with the CBI in the probe and appear before the agency on August 3. It had also directed the CBI to file a reply on his plea within three weeks.

Complying with the court's order, Balkrishna appeared twice before the CBI here earlier this month, but the sleuths failed to take out required information from him.

Last week, Balkrishna was served notice by the CBI to present his original education documents before it, but the envelope delivered to the agency by his lawyer on August 27 had his ration card only, official sources said.

The CBI wanted to use the documents related to Balkrishna's education in getting the stay vacated on his arrest, they said.

Balkrishna had gone "missing" on July 24, a day after the CBI had filed a case against him on charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy for procuring fake degrees and violation of section 12 of Indian Passport Act for furnishing such documents to get a passport.

He resurfaced on the evening of July 29 only after the High Court stayed his arrest.