The Gauhati High Court on Monday stayed the observations of Barpeta Court’s order on Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani’s bail application related to Assam police and the ‘false case’ filed against him.
Justice Debashis Barua, hearing a petition filed by Assam government challenging the observations made by the Barpeta District and Sessions Court in the order granting bail to the MLA, said that the Court had ”crossed its limits which had demoralised the Assam police and the state government”.
The lower Court had granted bail to Mevani on April 29 in the case related to the assault of a woman police officer while she along with other senior police officers were escorting him from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar.
The Judge observed that the Court’s remarks related to the working of the police and the government was ”beyond his jurisdiction” and as such these observations ‘have been stayed until further orders’.
Regarding the lower Court’s observation that the police had registered a ‘false case’ against Mevani, the High Court observed that ”there was no abuse of the process of law or the Court”.
Justice Barua observed that the lower court judge’s observations made in the order in which he had already granted bail to the MLA was ”against the jurisprudence and orders laid out by the Supreme Courts. The order should have been on the rule of the law and not on his personal opinion or whims and fancy”.
The High Court has stayed only the observations made by the lower Court on Assam police and the state government. Mevani’s bail order remains intact until further orders.
The Dalit leader was granted bail on a Personal Recognisance (PR) bond of Rs 1,000 in the case filed at the Barpeta Road police station.He was arrested in this case on April 25 soon after he was released on bail in another case related to a tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kokrajhar district.
Mevani, an Independent MLA backed by the Congress, was first arrested on April 19 from Palanpur town in Gujarat, and was brought to Kokrajhar for tweeting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The lower court judge had noted that the high court may consider directing the Assam Police to reform itself to “prevent registration of false FIR like the present case and the police personnel firing and killing or injuring accused which has become a routine phenomenon in the state”.
The high court might also consider directing each and every police personnel engaged in law and order duty to wear “body camera, to install CCTV cameras in vehicles while arresting an accused or taking an accused to some place for recoveries of goods or other reasons and also install CCTV cameras inside all police stations”, the lower court order said.
“Otherwise our state will become a police state which the society can ill-afford,” it added.
Advocate General Devajit Saikia took special permission to challenge Mevani’s bail order in the High Court.
Saikia told reporters that they had challenged the entire order and appealed to the Court to set it aside.
The Court has fixed the next date of hearing on May 27.
The High Court directed that the notice be served to Mevani by a special messenger of either the Gujarat or Assam police or the state government.
Mevani returned to Gujarat on April 30 after being released on bail and completing the formalities to his release.
