Shiney Ahuja gets bail

Bombay HC packs him off to Delhi till start of trial

Justice A P Deshpande ordered the 36-year-old actor to pay a surety of Rs 50,000 within three weeks, surrender his passport and refrain from offering any inducement to witnesses, directly or indirectly. The court also ordered him not to leave the country without its permission and report every week to a police station in Delhi. He will be allowed to go to Mumbai only during trial.

Shiney, accused of raping his maid in his apartment at Oshiwara in northwest Mumbai, told the court that he would move to Delhi and stay with his parents.

Jubilant wife

Shiney’s jubilant wife Anupam said: “I am overwhelmed that he has got bail. Our faith in the judiciary has been restored. We have to now start planning our next step.”

Anupam has stood by her husband from the time of his arrest and also spoken to the media in his defence.

Shiney was lodged at the high-security Arthur Road Central Prison after he was arrested for rape on June 15, a charge he denies. Since the complainant lives in Mumbai, Shiney has been ordered to leave the city, as is often done in rape cases to prevent the accused from threatening the victim.

Charge-sheet

Last week, Shiney had fainted in the court while charges were framed against him. The prosecution has submitted its evidence and the police have also filed a 109-page charge sheet against him. Earlier, the actor’s bail plea was rejected twice by the lower court.

In the high court, Shiney's lawyer Shirish Gupte and Srikant Shivade argued that evidence indicated a consensual sexual intercourse between the actor and the complainant.

“I (Shiney) am not a saint in a sense, but not a rapist," Shiney had told the court through his advocate who argued that medical and other evidence suggested that intercourse was entirely with the girl’s consent.

No injuries

Gupte said that as per medical reports, there were no injuries on Shiney’s body, barring one between two fingers of his hand. “It could be love-bites... or she clutched his hand very hard,” he said. Had the girl resisted, she could have scratched Shiney's face or upper body and face, he said.

Shiney has five films in hand — ‘Migration’, ‘Har Pal’, ‘Chalo Movie’, ‘Accident’ and ‘Take Two’ — Bollywood sources said.