PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has granted anticipatory bail to four members of the Revolutionary Goans whose anticipatory bail applications were denied by the Sessions Judge (North Goa).
Allowing the application filed by the four -- Pandurang Naik, Nilesh Gaonkar, Shantaram Gaonkar and Gautam Melekar -- the High Court ruled that the Sessions judge erred in ruling that just because prima facie there was no non-bailable offence committed, was no ground to reject an anticipatory bail application.
The happenings date to December 11, when on learning of an election meeting being conducted in violation of the Election Code of Conduct, more particularly, because the meeting was held on the night prior to the Zilla Panchayat Election the four along with other members of Revolutionary Goans went to report the said event.
Instead however, they were booked by the Police. In their arguments before the court, they submitted that they were falsely accused of having forcibly entered into the premises of one hotel, Sai Family Restaurant and began to videograph the complainants and threatened to publish it on social media and induced them to give money otherwise they will tarnish their image.
The Additional Sessions Judge though agreed with the submissions made on their behalf, held that application for anticipatory bail was itself not maintainable since Section 384 was not attracted and that since only Section 451 of IPC prima facie stood attracted and the said offence is bailable. Hence, the application for anticipatory bail is not maintainable and therefore was rejected.
The HC, however, disagreed. “In my considered opinion the ground on which the anticipatory bail is rejected is erroneous. Once, having come to the conclusion that the FIR discloses a non-bailable offence and the applicant is prima facie not involved in the same, the learned Additional Sessions Judge ought to have granted anticipatory bail to the applicant. After considering in detail the facts and circumstances and after observing that prima facie bailable offence has been committed, there was no reason to reject the anticipatory bail on the grounds that prima facie non-bailable offence was not made out from the complaint,” Justice M S Jawalkar said.
