Bombay High Court quashes bail terms for rape accused

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has quashed a sessions court order demanding surety from a rape accused which he has been unable to provide since the past 13 months and hence has been languishing in jail despite getting bail. The high court held that the sessions court was over being over cautious and mechanical, and issued the order to cancel the bail.

The bench of Justice Prakash D Naik was hearing the criminal writ petition of Ramsanjivan Gupta, a native of Uttar Pradesh and working in a factory at Bhandup. In 2015, Gupta had been arrested for ravishing his co-worker’s wife and had been tried by the sessions court.

He was granted bail in May 2016 on the grounds that the act for which he was charged was probably a consensual act.

However, while he was able to pay the Rs 15,000 bail amount, Gupta was not able to provide surety. Gupta’s advocate, Umesh Mohite pointed out that though a surety was furnished with great difficulty, it was rejected by the sessions court as Gupta had not furnished any document in respect to his permanent address, which led to non-compliance of one of the bail conditions, according to the sessions court.

After hearing the case, the bench quashed and set aside the order rejecting Gupta’s surety, and directed the trial court to reconsider the surety afresh on its own merits. “The sessions court has passed the order in a mechanical manner and the same is being quashed and set aside,” observed the court.