The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the Bihar Police to take former RJD MP Shahabuddin into custody immediately after setting aside a Patna High Court order granting him bail.
A bench of Justices P C Ghose and Amitava Roy considered the criminal antecedents of the gangster-turned-politician and the interest of the society to hold that the high court was not justified in granting bail to him.
Within hours, Shahabuddin, the four-time MP from Siwan, surrendered before a court in Siwan, which sent him to the divisional jail. He is likely to be shifted to Bhagalpur jail, from where he was released on September 10.
Shahabuddin has been sentenced to life term for murdering two sons of complainants, Siwan residents Chandra- keshwar Prasad and Kalawati Devi. The high court had granted him bail on September 7 in the murder case relating to the killing of their third son, who was an eyewitness to the murder of his brothers, as the trial was yet to commence.
Acting on appeals by the victims as well as the Bihar government, the apex court said: “Balancing the considerations of individual liberty and societal interest as well as the prescriptions and the perception of law regarding bail, it appears to us that the HC has erred in granting bail to the accused without taking into consideration the overall facts otherwise having a bearing on the exercise of its discretion on the issue.”
(Published 30 September 2016, 19:21 IST)
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