PANJIM, JUNE 2
After cooling his heels in custody for over a month the suspended Police Inspector Ashish Shirodkar got some relief on Wednesday as the Bombay High Court granted him conditional bail.
Vacation Bench of Justice N A Britto granted his bail application on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and one surety in like amount. Shirodkar had moved the High Court in May when his bail plea was rejected by the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Court, Mapusa.
He was suspended along with six other police personnel, and arrested on graft and conspiracy charges following their alleged links with drug dealers David alias Dudu Driham and Yaniv alias Atala Benaim came to light through a spy cam video on the net, a couple of months ago.
The defence counsel Arun Braz D’Sa speaking to reporters after the Court order said Ashish has also been asked to report to the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Ravindra Yadav during his suspension period and not to visit the coastal belt till further orders.
In the Court the defence counsel submitted that neither the alleged video clipping on www.youtube.com and www.metacafe.com nor the complaint prima facie showed Ashish’s involvement in the crime.
The counsel for the prosecution Adv Carlos Ferreira meanwhile told the Court the State was looking out for a senior officer who is/was not connected to the anti-narcotic cell at any point of time to take over the nexus probe from the present investigating officer Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) C S Salgaonkar.
The High Court in the last hearing had sought to know if the State government had any plans to hand over the investigation to an independent agency such as CBI in view of the involvement of several policemen.
The State Government however replied in negative saying there was no necessity to hand over the case to CBI, at this stage. The case is being investigated by the Crime Branch which is headed by DySP Salgaocar.
The suspended policemen face charges under sections 380, 409 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, sections 7, 11 and 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and sections 28, 29, 30, 31 and 59-B of Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances Act.
