Cuttack, Feb. 23: Rajasthan police has contended that B.B. Mahanti has done “more harm than good” to son Bitihotra by getting him out on parole instead of pursuing the bail application filed in the appeal against the youth’s conviction.

As a result, rape convict Bitihotra’s bail plea was “dismissed as withdrawn”, the police have argued.

Bitihotra had filed an appeal in Rajasthan High Court challenging his conviction and sentence in April 2006. An application was also filed for his release on bail during the pendency of the appeal.

“The bail application was adjourned from time to time and has not been disposed of yet,” Mahanti had alleged before the high court.

The senior IPS officer, the DGP of home guards and fire services, had made the allegation both in his anticipatory bail application and petition filed subsequently challenging the FIR registered against him on January 10 at Jaipur’s Lal Kothi police station.

In reply, the additional superintendent of police, Jaipur city (east), Sanjay Shtotriya, accused Mahanti of “misleading the court”.

The DGP and his wife “had been filing parole applications on their own” since September 2006 and “did not take any effective steps” to get the plea decided early.

“The bail application was kept pending for reasons best known to him. In the normal course, such applications are not kept pending for such a long time and it appears that the same has been adjourned from time to time at the behest of Mahanti,” the ASP had alleged in an affidavit submitted before the high court.

“Ultimately the application for suspension of sentence has been dismissed as withdrawn on January 4, 2007,” the affidavit claimed.

Shtotriya pointed out: “Not only that, when parole of 15 days was granted to Bitihotra, he still continued to file applications for extension of parole. But strangely, no effort appears to have been made by him to have the bail application decided by Rajasthan High Court.