HC stays some lower court observations

The Gauhati high court on Monday stayed some observations made by a lower court last week against Assam Police while granting bail to Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mevani. While the HC said the stay on the observations “may not be construed in any manner as a stay to the grant of bail” to Mevani, it said the Assam government “shall be at liberty to challenge the said (bail) order”. Mevani was arrested on April 20 in Gujarat’s Palanpur and brought to Assam’s Kokrajhar in connection with “offensive” tweets on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Hours after he was granted bail on April 25, he was re-arrested by Barpeta police on charges of assaulting a woman police officer. On April 29, he was granted bail by a Barpeta court which criticised the police and urged the HC to direct the police to “reform itself”.

GUWAHATI/NEW DELHI: The Gauhati high court (HC) on Monday stayed some observations made by a lower court last week against Assam Police when the latter granted bail to Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani in a case of alleged assault of a woman police officer.

The HC made it clear that the stay on the observations “may not be construed in any manner as a stay to the grant of bail” to Mevani by the lower court and added that the Assam government “shall be at liberty to challenge the said (bail) order in appropriate proceedings...”

Mevani, a convener of Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, who had offered support to Congress last year, was first arrested on the night of April 20 in Gujarat’s Palanpur and brought to the northeastern state by Assam’s Kokrajhar district police in connection with an FIR filed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader over “offensive” tweets about PM Narendra Modi. Hours after he was granted bail on April 25, he was re-arrested by Barpeta police on charges of assaulting a woman police officer while being taken to Kokrajhar from Guwahati.

On April 29, he was granted bail by a Barpeta court which criticised the police and urged the Gauhati HC to direct the police force to “reform itself”.

On Monday, the state government, through its home department, filed a petition in the HC, seeking a stay on the observations made by the Barpeta district and sessions judge Aparesh Chakravarty on the grounds that they cast aspersions on police and could affect their morale.

In his bail order on April 29, Chakravarty said the case against the independent MLA “was manufactured for the purpose of keeping him in detention for a longer period, abusing the process of court and the law”.