While granting bail to Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani on Saturday, sessions judge Justice Aparesh Chakraborty pulled up Assam police for registering a false FIR in the Congress leader’s name. In his order, he highlighted the danger of Assam turning into a “police state” that “society can ill afford”.
“…Converting our hard-earned democracy into a police state is simply unthinkable and if the Assam police is thinking about the same, the same is perverse thinking,” the order stated.
Mevani on Friday expressed his trust in India’s judicial system and his anguish for being falsely implicated in a case, involving a tweet allegedly against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for which he was re-arrested in Assam.
In the order, Justice Chakraborty also highlighted that “police encounters” were becoming “a routine phenomenon” in Assam. “To prevent registration of false FIR like the present one and to give credibility to the police version of occurrences… the Guwahati High Court may perhaps consider directing the Assam police to reform itself by taking some measures like directing every police personnel to wear body cameras, to install CCTV cameras in vehicles (while arresting an accused or taking an accused to some place for discovery of some articles and for such other reasons) and also to install CCTV cameras inside all police stations,” the judgment stated.
Calling the bail order “stunning and historic in today’s context”, senior advocate Angshuman Bora said, “The FIR and the case, thereof, is malicious and the fact has been proved by the judgement. As far my knowledge goes, such a judgement was once given in the DK Basu case and this one is the second such in the country. A copy has been sent to the Chief Justice of Guwahati High Court, and it been requested to accept it as a PIL and pass directive to the Assam police,” Bora added.
The court said, “Contrary to the FIR, the woman has given a different story before the learned magistrate… In view of the testimony of the woman, the instant case is manufactured for the purpose of keeping the accused Jignesh Mevani in detention for a longer period, abusing of the process of the court and the law.”
Appearing before the Kokrajhar court on Saturday, Mevani said, “Assam has more serious concerns such as power and unemployment. Why be busy with MLAs from outside?”
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