Clean library books, plant sapling: Patna High Court’s conditions for anticipatory bail in assault, modesty case

Justice Rajiv Roy considered the submission of the accused along with his young age while granting pre-arrest bail. (Image is enhanced using AI)

Findings

• The court took into consideration that the accused is a “young boy” with no criminal antecedents and further undertook to cooperate in the investigation and appear in the trial diligently.
• Justice Roy instructed the accused to seek a supplementary affidavit after getting a certificate from the principal of the college regarding his presence for the given week.
• The accused was granted pre-arrest bail on the condition of furnishing a bail bond of Rs 10,000 with two sureties within a period of four weeks.
• The accused will be appearing before the trial court on every date, and failure to do so for two consecutive dates without a plausible reason will lead to the cancellation of his bail bond.
• He shall not induce, promise, or threaten the witnesses or tamper with the evidences else his liberty will be curtailed accordingly.

Unique submission of accused

• Representing the accused, advocate Rajeev Kumar Ambastha argued that the woman may have been touched “inadvertently”, but a different “colour” was given to this incident, leading to the present FIR.
• Ambastha further contended that his client has absolutely no criminal antecedents. It was placed on record that earlier it was stated that he has seven criminal antecedents, but it was found to be against some other person and not the present accused.

• In his last submission, the accused requested to visit the library of one college in Patna City for a week, perform cleaning work of the books for two hours and at the end of the day, plant the sapling in the college campus.
• On the contrary, the state’s counsel, assistant public prosecutor Narsingh Tanti, opposed the pre-bail plea, arguing that he tried to outrage the modesty of a woman and, upon protest, alongwith other co-accused, assaulted the family members.

Background

A woman was allegedly assaulted by the accused while buying vegetables. The prosecution argued that when she protested and called the family members, the accused resorted to assault. It was further argued that the accused allegedly acted inebriated while riding a motorbike when the incident occurred.

The matter is listed to be heard next on February 6.