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On Monday the High Court of Gujarat granted anticipatory bail to the person accused under the Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, observing that he was unaware about the identity of the victim, the bar placed on anticipatory bail under the special law will not be applicable in the case.
The appellant has prayed before the Bench of Justice Bhargav D. Karia, for anticipatory bail under the section 438 of Code of Civil Procedure, in connection of the FIR alleging the offences under section 306 (Abetment of Suicide), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 114 (presence of abettor at the time of the commission of the offence, he is deemed to have committed it) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) with section 3(2) (v) of SCST Act.
The court observed that the appellant did not know the deceased person and that he belonged to the SCST category, and that his only role is that he is alleged for deleting the CCTV footage.
The court observed that as the accused was unaware about the identity of the deceased there is no prima facie offence can be said to have committed by the appellant under section, 306, 201, and 114 of IPC as it is only alleged that he has only deleted the CCTV footage.
The bench said, “In such circumstance, I am of the opinion that the complaint does not make out a prima facie case for applicability of the provisions of the SCST Act and therefore, the bar created by section 18 and 18A thereof shall not apply as no prima facie material exist warranting the arrest of the appellant” and granted anticipatory bail to the appellant in the event of his arrest pursuant to the impugned complaint.
It may be noted that when this case was presented before the bench of Justice Paresh Upadhyay, he referred the issue to the chief justice with observation that disciplined justice demanded that coordinated benches do not pass contradicted orders and then chief justice assigned the case to another bench to decide on the basis of justice Upadhyay order.
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