Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday observed that the arrest of a man at 3 am on November 5 by the Mira-Bhayandar-Vasai-Virar police was prima facie illegal and ordered his immediate release on interim cash bail of Rs.10,000. The man’s brother Sunil Rathod filed a petition in the HC alleging police brutality at an ACP office hosted in a ‘gala’ on November 4 after illegal detention.
ACP Bajrang Desai’s office since 2018 because of the Bullet Train project is in a “gala” and has no CCTV cameras said the prosecutor. Lawyer Nimay Dave for the brother, said Anil Rathod, the arrested man was “beaten” at this office without CCTV but showed photos of other cameras nearby. The HC directed the local Dy Commissioner of Police (DCP) to request camera footage from the neighborhood and a civic hospital for November 3-7 and file an affidavit on what happened.
HC vacation bench of Justices Arif Doctor and Somasekhar Sundaresan considering injuries confirmed by HC doctor and JJ hospital report, local magistrate’s ‘treatment’ of torture allegations by finding no ‘visible injuries’ while arresting him in the custody of the police, “the inexplicable change of view as to the necessity of arresting Detenu who, even at 3:00 a.m. after he had been released the previous evening,” made his arrest “illegal.”
On Thursday, Additional Public Prosecutor Sharmila Kaushik said the DCP has transferred the investigation from Pelhar police station to Nallasopara police station. Nimay Dave, counsel for Rathod, said the transfer was a hoax and that a HC-directed inquiry be done by the police station outside ACP Desai’s jurisdiction. HC had sent Anil to JJ hospital on Wednesday for overnight treatment.
APP Kaushik claimed that she “does not justify the police action”. Anil was arrested in a 2023 FIR for the alleged crime of cheating “investors” in property, registered against his father.
Anil was not charged in the FIR. His name had appeared in the witness statements, APP said, and he was supposed to mark his presence on November 3 in response to a notice under Section 41A CrPC asking him for an explanation. Such a notice is served when the offense carries a penalty of less than 7 years imprisonment.
Dave contested the service of the notice. He said the plainclothes police went to pick him up on November 4 in the morning and took him to the ACP office where he was kept until 6pm in illegal detention and tortured. ACP was the investigating officer told APP.
Later, when he was at the civic hospital for his bruises, the police again in plain clothes, contrary to the legal mandate of Section 41A CrPC, picked him up at 10.30 pm, said Dave and lawyer Priyanka Dubey.
The HC directed the DCP to seek the department’s response to the non-availability of free safe space for unsupervised interrogation in a gala apparently not being a ‘police station’. The HC directed the Superintendent of Police to verify the reply. The FIR complainant must also file the affidavit. The HC will hear the next petition on December 10.