New Delhi, May 17.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted anticipatory bail to Indian Youth Congress leader B.V. Srinivas on the condition that he cooperate in the Assam police probe into the harassment case lodged against him by expelled Assam Youth Congress leader Dr Angkita Dutta.
The Gauhati High Court had earlier refused to quash the case against him or grant him anticipatory bail. Srinivas had challenged this decision in the top court. Today when the case came up for a hearing, a bench comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Sanjay Karol, granted him anticipatory bail.
The bench went through the Section 164 statement of the complainant, but refused to state anything on the case on merits. Instead, the bench noted that the delay in filing the FIR was enough to grant him bail.
The bench noted that Section 354, IPC, or outraging the modesty of a woman only came into the FIR for the first time. Assam police is probing the case and have summoned him on May 22. Srinivas will have to furnish a bail bond of Rs 50,000.
The court also issued notices to the Assam government seeking its stand on Srinivasan’s plea for quashing the case. The state has to respond by July 10.
Dutta has filed an FIR against Srinivas under various sections of the IPC and the Information Technology Act. She has since been expelled from the Congress party.
These include Section 354 (outraging modesty of a woman), 354A (sexual harassment), 294 (uttering obscene words), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult modesty of a woman), 341 (wrongful restraint), 352 (assault or criminal force), 506 (criminal intimidation) read with Section 67 (transmitting electronically material containing a sexually explicit act or conduct) of the IT Act.
Arguing for Srinivasan, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that the complainant did not complain from February till April when she first began giving interviews. He pointed out that the complaint is against Vardhan Yadav, the IYC national secretary.
“Assam police is ever ready to arrest me. The whole complaint is heckling, holding my arm and mental harassment. Except 354 all other offences are bailable,” he argued.
Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, who spoke for Assam, claimed that the allegations were serious. “There is nothing political about this as both are from the same political party,” he said.
He also accused the Congress leader, who was the face of the Congress party during relief operations during Covid, of not responding to Section 41 notices to him and for persistently claiming that he was unwell even though he was the party’s star campaigner during the Karnataka polls.
Justice Gavai blamed this on state police’s reputation. “You had arrested someone at the airport once,” he observed. Raju also claimed that mental harassment amounts to outraging modesty of a woman under the definition of the law.
The complainant’s lawyer argued that she had been taking up the issue with the party high command since Feb contesting the statements made about the delay in filing a case. The bench though dismissed her arguments with a statement to the effect that no claims of holding hands or arm were made before the FIR was filed.
