Court grants bail to man accused of assaulting Kanhaiya Kumar

New Delhi [India], May 21 (ANI): Delhi's Karkardooma Court on Tuesday granted bail to a person accused of assaulting Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar and outraging the modesty of a woman politician on May 17 in the New Usman Pur area of North East Delhi.
The alleged incident happened last Friday when Kumar was interacting with people at the AAP office in New Usmanpur. The woman politician has hosted the meeting. The purported video of the incident has gone viral. In the video, it can be seen that some people while interacting with Kanhaiya Kumar, garlanded him and also threw ink on the Congress leader and tried to assault him. When the woman leader tried to intervene, they also misbehaved with her and threatened her.
An FIR has been lodged against the accused on a complaint filed by the woman politician.
Metropolitan Magistrate Arushi Parwal granted bail to accused Ajay Kumar alias Ranveer Bhati. He has been granted bail on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 25000 and a surety bond of the like amount.
"Considering that the offences invoked in the present FIR are punishable with less than 7 years of imprisonment, clean antecedents of the accused, submissions made and the circumstances of the case, keeping in view the judicial precedents on the aspect of arrest and bail, application for bail of the accused is allowed," the court said in the order.
He was produced before the court after being arrested yesterday.
Delhi Police moved an application seeking 14 days of judicial custody of the accused.
The remand application was opposed by the accused's counsels on the grounds that all the alleged offences carried a maximum punishment of less than seven years. He should be released on bail as arrest was not required as per guidelines of the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar Vs the State of Bihar, they said.
A bail application was also moved on behalf of accused Ajay Kumar alias Ranveer Bhati.
Advocate Praveen Goswami, Raman Sharma and Amit Sharma appeared for the accused.
It was argued by advocate Praveen Goswami that the accused has been falsely implicated specifically in respect of an offence punishable under Section 354 (Outraging modesty of woman) IPC.
In fact, the complainant was nowhere present at the spot and video footage of the same is available with the accused. Generally, in offences of such nature, an arrest is not affected and there are no special circumstances in the present case to require the arrest of the accused. Further, the accused has no previous involvement in any criminal case, advocate Goswami argued.
He further stated that even prima facie, there is no allegation of intent to outrage the modesty of the complainant in the version of the complainant in her complaint. There are no allegations pertaining to the offence under Section 354 IPC against the accused.
A video clip about the incident recorded on the mobile phone was also seen by the court.
Delhi police moved an application seeking 14 days' Judicial custody (JC) of the accused.
It was further submitted that the investigation is still underway. To prevent the accused from committing similar offences, absconding etc, Shivani Joshi the additional public prosecutor (APP) for the state, has pressed for the disposal of the remand application in terms of submission of the Investigating Officer.
Upon enquiry, IO submitted that the accused has no previous involvement in any criminal case.
Advocate Pradeep Teotia, counsel for the complainant submitted that there is a specific allegation of assault. The allegations pertain to offences committed by unlawful assembly, which are still under investigation. There was a preplanned conspiracy and the members of this unlawful assembly were carrying ink to disrupt a meeting arranged by the complainant pertaining to upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, Teotia argued.
He also submitted that the complainant was very much present at the spot and video footage of the same is available with the complainant, in which she can been seen accompanying Kanhaiya Kumar.
The court noted that the present FIR pertains to the offences of hurt, obstruction of way, outraging modesty of a woman and criminal intimidation. All the invoked offences carry punishment for less than or up to seven years. No offence pertaining to an unlawful assembly has been invoked by the IO at this stage or remand to that effect has been sought by the IO.
While granting bail, the court said, " At the time of deciding bail application, the court has to balance two conflicting interests - on one hand is the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused and his right to personal liberty and on the other hand, the State's interest in the maintenance of public order and interest in protecting the integrity of the investigation." (ANI)