VASCO: After being under custody of the Vasco Railway Police for almost 11 days and facing interrogation by Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Goa Police and other agencies, the Vasco Judicial Magistrate First Class on Thursday granted conditional bail to suspect Samir Sardana.
He has been asked to produce a bond of Rs 10,000, plus a surety (local surety clause exempted on request of defence lawyer) besides he has to appear before ATS officials for four days from 10 am to 12 noon and that he cannot leave the country without informing the court.
The bail plea hearing, which was submitted on behalf of maternal uncle of Samir, commander (retired) Harinder Singh Rawat was to be heard in the first half in B Court of Vasco JMFC, the Vasco Railway Police appeared before the court and sought additional time till afternoon to produce the suspect.
The police submitted that the accused has been sent for medical examination at Institute of Psychiatry & Human Behaviour (IPHB), Bambolim and the case was then rescheduled in the afternoon. After hearing the defence advocate Shashikant Joshi and Assistant Public Prosecutor Devanand Korgaonkar, JMFC Shabnam Shaikh granted conditional bail to Samir and asked him to comply with the directions.
“I argued before the court that my client Samir has been arrested under Section 41 CrPC. However, in my submission I argued that this section cannot be invoked here and there are specific grounds under which these sections can be invoked. There were no circumstances in this case and he was just arrested and thereafter they tried to make out a case justifying the arrest. Thus, my first argument was that the arrest and detention is illegal and was made legal because of the remand and thus today my client was released, as police have no evidence against him,” said Adv Joshi.
On his way out of court, Samir Sardana claimed “I have full faith in the courts, justice has been partly served today and I am confident that I will get a complete clean chit. I just hope that the Indian media keeps track on these things so that India remains a free nation.
