A sessions court held in a thorough order rejecting the police appeal to cancel the bail granted to a woman and her friend accused last month of assaulting a traffic cop, that the rights of a citizen must not be dealt with lightly.
"The denial of bail or cancellation of the accused's bail will lead to a pretrial conviction," Judge B V Wagh said in additional sessions.
Furthermore, the court claimed that bail can be revoked only if there are conditions such as tampering of evidence, witness threats, likeliness to abscond. "The Court of Sessions said, "It cannot be said that the magistrate exerted discretion, unfairly or unlawfully.
On 23 October, Sagarika Tiwari (29) and Mohsin Khan (32) were arrested for assaulting a traffic policeman in southern Mumbai. They were granted bail on October 26 by a magistrate's court.
The police moved to court for sessions, trying to revoke their bail. It was argued that when he was doing his duties in a crowded area, the accused had attacked an on-duty public servant. The prosecution argued that the actions of Tiwari was hazardous to the functioning of the traffic police and decreased their morale. The prosecution also claimed that Tiwari was in the habit of breaching traffic laws and that there were 37 cases in which a challan was released and fined.
The prosecution rejected the plea, arguing that the cops had obtained ample evidence for the trial and that there were no exceptional conditions for the bail to be canceled.
However, the session court held that the magistrate had found the question of antecedents, the problem of rehabilitation, and that death or life imprisonment is not punishable by the offense. Moreover, accused number 1 (Tiwari) is a lady. The magistrate has also put stringent conditions on the accused to attend the police station every Monday till filing of charge sheet with additional liberty to the investigator to call the accused with written intimation, the court said.
Constable Eknath Porte, who is posted at the Kalbadevi Traffic Police Division, was on duty in Kalbadevi, according to police, when he flagged down Shaikh, who was riding a bicycle, with Tiwari riding a pillion.
Shaikh was asked by Porte to pay a penalty for not wearing a helmet. This led to an argument between the biker and the constable. Later, on social media, a video of a woman beating up a cop went viral.
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