Former ABVP President gets bail in the case of harassing elderly woman

The Madras High Court on Monday granted interim bail to former ABVP president Dr Subbiah Shanmugam who was arrested on March 19 in a nearly two-year-old case of harassing an elderly lady by urinating outside her apartment over an argument on parking space.

Hearing the bail petition as an “urgent matter” as contended by Dr Shanmugam’s counsel, Justice G Jayachandran granted him interim bail and gave time till March 24 for the prosecution to file its counter to his regular bail plea.

Dr Shanmugam was arrested by the Chennai Police on March 19 in the two-year-old case. After the arrest, he was sent to 14-day judicial custody by a local court.

The former ABVP chief was in the news last month after the Tamil Nadu government placed him under suspension for “violating the service rules” by meeting activists of ABVP in jail. He was the head of the Surgical Oncology department at the Government Royapettah Hospital here.

In July 2020, he was booked under sections 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule) and 427 (mischief causing damage) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Tamil Nadu Women Harassment Prevention Act.

He was booked after the elderly woman’s relative Balaji Vijayaraghavan filed a complaint accusing Dr Shanmugam of harassing his aunt, who is living alone in her apartment following her husband’s death last year, following an argument over a parking slot.

However, in a Twitter post on Saturday evening, Vijayaraghavan had said he never withdrew the complaint and thanked the police for following the law.

Dr Shanmugam and the woman were living in the same apartment complex in Nanganallur, and an argument broke between them over a parking slot.

The complaint had also alleged that Dr Shanmugam began harassing her by throwing “pieces of chicken” outside her apartment despite knowing she is a vegetarian. CCTV footage had corroborated with the allegations of urinating outside the residence of the woman.

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