Court grants bail to man charged for forging caste

A sessions court has granted bail to a man accused of providing a fake caste certificate to a student to enable her to get admission into a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surger y (MBBS) course at Grant Medical College, Byculla, in 2018-2019.

The JJ Marg police station, where the offence of cheating and forgery has been registered against him, had opposed his plea, stating that his co-accused is absconding and that the man is a habitual offender and another similar offence has been registered against him. The court, while granting him bail, relied on the observations of the Gujarat High Court, where it had held that, if there is laxity or inability on the prosecution’s part to arrest the co-accused, then on that ground, the other accused against whom the investigation is over and chargesheet is filed, cannot be denied bail. The court said that the observations are applicable to the case in hand.

Additional Sessions Judge Abhijeet A Nandgaonkar further said that necessar y police custody of Vishal Suryawanshi was granted to the police and they have filed the chargesheet af ter investigation. “Therefore, I do not think that further custody of the applicant is necessar y, nor it will yield any fruitful purpose,” Judge Nandgaonkar said further. The court, however, also noted that, on perusal of the FIR and police’s reply, prima facie, his involvement appears in the crime and that offence is serious.