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Supreme Court has criticized certain observation made by the Bombay High Court in a matter present before it involving grant of bail to three accused belonging to Hindu Rashtra Sena for alleged killing of a Muslim youth in 2014. The facts of the case were that Vijay Gambhire,Ganesh Yadav and Ajay Lalge were accused of murdering Mohsin Sheikh in June 2, 2014 Pune. The three accused had attended a meeting of Hindu Mahasabha and were protesting against defiling of statute of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The three accused were roaming on the streets with arms and sticks at night , when they come acroos Mohsin and thrashed him to death. Their bail plea was rejected by the lower court , however the High Court granted them bail. The High Court observed that ‘The fault of the deceased was only that he belonged to another religion I consider this factor in favour of the accused’. The Bombay High Court further said that the accused do not have any prior criminal records and that it appears in the name of religion that they were provoked by religious sentiments. The Supreme Court has said that such remarks were uncalled for and that the judiciary must be aware of the pluralistic composition of the nation while adjudicating issues pertaining to rights of others. Th Bench consisting of Justice SA Bobde and L Nageswar Rao quashed the order of the Bombay High Court granting bail to the accused. It had asked the High Court to reconsider the bail plea of the accused afresh as per law on merit without being influenced by extraneous reason. The court said that there is negligible discussion on the merits of the case. The court further said that the reason given by High Court can be understood or misunderstood as mitigating circumstance or as a defence for murder. The fact that the judges gave an undue significance to the factor of communal hatred is something which appears to be in favour of applicants or accused. The court said that may be learned judges of the High Court were wanting to rule out on personal motive of the accused but ended up emphasizing on communal hatred and used words which are clearly vulnerable to such criticism.
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