JOIN US'False FIR, manufactured case..': What Assam court said about Jignesh Mevani's case
A sessions court in Assam’s Barpeta district, while granting bail to Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani on Friday, said that the case was manufactured based on a false FIR to keep him in detention for a long time and rejected a woman police officer's allegations about outraging her modesty, uttering obscene words, causing harm and preventing her from doing her official duty.
Mevani was arrested from Gujarat and brought to Assam on April 21 in a case registered at Kokrajhar in which a local BJP leader said that the MLA had made a "derogatory statement" about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On April 25, a Kokrajhar court granted him bail in the case and as his lawyers prepared for his release, police rearrested Mevani in the case registered by the woman police officer.
The police officer in question accompanied Mevani from Guwahati Airport to Kokrajhar, a distance of about 250kms, along with a male additional SP and a sub-inspector. In her FIR, the officer said that Mevani first spoke slang to her when they reached Barpeta Road at around 1.30 pm on April 21. She said that Mevani then pointed at her and tried to frighten her by pushing her down into the seat with force. She said that the MLA then assaulted her and outraged her modesty by touching her inappropriately while pushing her down.
Sessions Court Judge Aparesh Chakraborty, while rejecting the allegations, said in his order that the case was manufactured for the purpose of keeping the accused in detention for a longer period, which was an abuse of the process of the court and the law. "No sane person will ever try to outrage the modesty of a woman police officer in the presence of two male police officers and there is nothing in the record to hold that the accused Shri Jignesh Mevani is an insane person," the court said.
The court said that the woman police officer informed senior officers about the incident after reaching Kokrajhar but surprisingly, they did not register an FIR, which was a clear violation of the provisions of Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The court noted, "The section says that every information relating to the commission of a cognisable offence, if given orally to an officer in charge of a police station, shall be reduced to writing by him or under his direction."
The court said the case should not have been registered under Section 294 of the IPC as there was no mention in the FIR about the language that the accused used. The court said, "Therefore, as the first informant did not mention what obscene words were uttered by the accused, the word 'slang' used in the FIR cannot be held to be an obscene act within the meaning of obscene act as per Section 294 of the IPC."
The court said that pointing fingers with an intent to frighten and pushing her down into her seat cannot be held to be using criminal force by the accused with an intent to prevent the first informant from discharging her duties as a public servant. "Therefore, the commission of the offence under Section 353 IPC, prima facie, is not established," it said.
The sessions court said the pushing down into the seat cannot be held to have been done with intent to outrage her modesty as it was in the presence of two police officers, Surjeet Singh Panesar, additional superintendent of police (HQ) and sub-inspector Mouti Basumatary.
The court, in its order, said that contrary to the FIR, the victim had deposed a different story before the magistrate. "It seems the woman victim was sitting next to the accused person and as the vehicle was moving, the body of the accused must have touched the body of the victim and she felt that the accused was pushing her," the court said. "But the woman victim did not depose that the accused used his hands and outraged her modesty. She also did not depose that the accused uttered obscene words at her. She deposed that the accused abused her in his language. But she definitely did not understand the language. Otherwise, she would have mentioned the language used by the accused. In view of the above testimony of the woman victim, the instant case is manufactured for the purpose of keeping the accused Jignesh Mevani in detention for a longer period, abusing the process of the court and the law."
While calling it a false FIR by the Assam police, the court referred to the police version of several recent incidents in Assam in which several accused criminals were killed or injured while they allegedly tried to flee from police custody. The court said, "The Gauhati High Court may perhaps consider directing the Assam police to reform itself by taking measures like directing each and every police personnel engaged in law and order duty to wear body cameras, to install CCTV cameras in vehicles while arresting an accused or taking an accused to some place for discovery of some articles and for other reasons and also to install CCTV cameras inside all police stations."
"Otherwise our state will become a police state, which the society can ill afford," the court observed.
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