New Delhi: A Bombay High Court granting a Shiv Sena corporator bail in the doctors’ assault case has put two ruling allies of Maharashtra at odds. The Devendra Fadnavis-led government has criticised the HC order granting bail to Ramesh Mhatre for ignoring the gravity of the accusations, his criminal antecedents, and the risk that his release would pose to the probe and witnesses.
In its appeal filed this week in the Supreme Court, the state wants cancellation of Mhatre’s bail granted 7 August.
This order, it said, departed from HC’s findings recorded in the 18 July order, which took suo-motu cognizance of the trial court order that released the Shiv Sena corporator and three co-accused on bail.ThePrint has accessed the copy of the appeal.
The trial court order was given 14 July, eight days after the arrest of Mhatre and others. In its 18 July order, the HC described that order as perverse and unreasoned.
But by its 7 August order, the HC restored the bail, without recording a single new reason to depart from its earlier findings. It had imposed geographical restrictions on Mhatre and the co-accused by asking them to remain in Goa and report to the Anjuna police station thrice every week.
The Maharashtra government’s stand to set aside the HC order assumes significance given that Mhatre is a corporator of the Eknath Shinde Shiv Sena camp, a partner in the ruling Mahayuti coalition. Mhatre is a serving corporator in the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation.
“The present challenge is directed against an order which is perverse and suffers from non-consideration and/or inadequate consideration of material facts,” the appeal stated, calling the HC order perverse.
Mhatre, who faces 18 cases, was arrested along with three persons, on 8 July, two days after he allegedly led a mob that assaulted three doctors at a municipal hospital in Dombivali during a medical emergency. The doctors were also warned against reporting the incident to the police.
The complainant lodged the FIR a day later, leading to the arrests.
Despite the incomplete investigation, the magistrate granted bail to Mhatre on 14 July and three days later extended the order to three other accused.
Facing public outrage and resignation of the aggrieved doctors, the Bombay High Court took suo motu cognizance and on 18 July stayed both bail orders, after observing them as “unjustified and unsustainable”.
Yet, on 7 August, the HC restored bail to them, subject to a condition that they would relocate to Goa and report to the police.
The court’s reasoning
This order, the Maharashtra government said, remains every problem identified in the earlier HC order unaddressed. The order did nothing to protect the aggrieved doctors.
“It is submitted that residence in Goa and reporting at a police station is not a safeguard. It restrains nothing but physical location; does nothing to check the reach, influence and networks of an elected corporator who has already shown he can intimidate a complainant without leaving Maharashtra,” the appeal argues.
The HC could not have restored the bail given its own unreversed findings about Mhatre’s background, political influence, the incomplete investigation and risk of witness intimidation, it adds.
The order disregards that there was a specific threat to the witnesses, which already caused the FIR to be delayed and made one the doctors to resign, while refraining other witness-doctors to return to duty, the government says.
The release posed a risk to the ongoing investigation, which is still incomplete, as the chargesheet has not been filed yet. Therefore, to release the accused persons with a demonstrated propensity for violence and a proven ability to intimidate, at this early stage, creates a real risk of witness tampering, the state appeal says.
The HC bail order allows Mhatre to return to Maharashtra after filing of the chargesheet. The state has serious objections to this direction as well, given the intimidation concerns.
The government has also questioned bail granted to the three co-accused, contending the relief was extended purely on parity with Mhatre. The HC had flagged this concern with the trial court order, but repeated the error, without independently examining each accused’s individual role or criminal record, it says.
Notably, the state’s appeal was filed after Mhatre’s appeal, challenging the HC’s condition to stay in Goa, was heard by the top court. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta showed no inclination to entertain the appeal, forcing the corporator to withdraw his appeal on 7 September.
“Those who assault doctors and hospital staff do not deserve to roam on the streets even for a minute,” the bench told Mhatre, issuing notice to him for response to the state’s appeal.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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