The Gauhati High Court on Monday pulled up the Barpeta Districts and Sessions Court over its observations while granting bail to Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mawani for allegedly assaulting a woman police officer. The high court stayed some observations stating that they “crossed limits” and demoralised the police force and the government of Assam.
“These observations (on the Assam Police) were made without there being any materials on record, on the basis of which the learned judge could have made such observations and consequently, this court stays the above quoted observations until further orders,” said Justice Debashis Barua.
The Assam government had challenged the bail order as well as the observation made by the Barpeta District and Sessions Judge Aparesh Chakraborty.
Some observations of Chakravarty including the one where he requested the High Court to direct “each and every police personnel engaged in law and order duty to wear body cameras, to install CCTV cameras in vehicles while arresting an accused or taking an accused to some place for recoveries of goods or other reasons, and also install CCTV cameras inside all police stations” were stayed.
The local court in Barpeta on Friday had come down heavily on the authorities for seeking to establish a ‘police state’ and termed the molestation charges against the Gujarat legistator as “manufactured.” Chakraborty had urged the high court to direct the state police to “reform itself” over recent police excesses and “prevent registration of false FIR like the present case and the police personnel firing and killing or injuring accused which has become a routine phenomenon in the state.”
“No sane person will ever try to outrage the modesty of a lady police officer in presence of two male police officers and there is nothing in the record to hold that the accused Shri Jignesh Mevani is an insane person,” Aparesh Chakraborty had said in his bail order.