The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday stayed the final verdict against four accused in the murder of Rajesh Goyal, a chartered accountant, in his Sector-42 office. This was conveyed to the court of District and Sessions Judge on Friday.

Iqbal Singh Sabarwal, one of the witnesses and Goyal's colleague, told the Chandigarh Newsline, "We came to know that two people – Mukul Bansal and Rajan Jain – were after my money. Goyal was aware of their plan, and so Jain and Bansal conspired to kill him".

Sabarwal had met Bansal through Goyal. Bansal, along with Jain, had advised Goyal and Sabarwal to make an investment in certain shares amounting to Rs 5 crore. For the same, 77,300 shares were bought.

Advocate Bhupinder Singh Thind said, "We had moved a petition on January 8, stating that Jain and Bansal be made co-accused in the case. They were initially arrested by the police, but were later set free".

He added that since the Sessions Court dismissed the application moved on January 8, a revised petition was moved in the court of MMS Bedi of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, on January 30.

According to the high court's order, an FIR was registered at the Sector-36 police station on May 22, 2007 regarding Goyal's murder. Another FIR was registered at the Sector-3 police station on June 9, 2009 with allegations of cheating and conspiracy against the two accused undertrial, Kanav Arora and Shiv Kumar, who were allegedly employees of Bansal and his nephew Jain.

The order passed by the court states, "After going through the records, it is sufficient to observe at this stage that there appears to be a connection between the transactions of the two FIRs. The said aspect seems to be relevant for the adjurisdiction of the applicant under Section 319 of CrPC to consider weather Jain and Bansal could be arraigned as additional accused in the murder case".

"The petitioner has submitted that Jain and Goyal have been able to manipulate the investigation in both the FIRs, and had been able to escape the trial and punishment by getting their employees Kumar and Arora involved in both the cases," the order read.

The standing counsel of Chandigarh has been served a notice, and the final order by the trial court was stayed .

In May, 2007, Goyal was found murdered in his office on the first floor in Sector 42. Peon Kamlesh had told the police that he saw four men in blood-stained clothes come down from the first floor of the office and leave in a car.

The police recovered a PAN card from the spot, which led to the arrest of Arora, Kumar, Maninder Singh and Ashwinder Singh. It was alleged that Rajesh had been demanding them (accused) to return the money invested by Sabarwal in the share market (running into crores), which the four had allegedly pocketed by selling his shares. (Indian Express)