New Delhi: A Delhi Court on Friday granted protection from arrest to Pinky Chaudhary alias Bhupender Tomar, the prime accus ofed in the alleged inflammatory and anti-Muslim sloganeering at Jantar Mantar.
ASJ Ashutosh Kumar of Patiala House Courts granted him protection from arrest on his anticipatory bail plea noting that from the Video presented by the SHO of the alleged incident, the words uttered by the applicant/accused, were not audible.
“The reply of the IO does not specify as to what communal slogans were raised or which were the words uttered: by the applicant/accused, to hurt the religious sentiments of another community,” observed the Court.
The Court also took into account the fact that the main organizer and one of the accused Ashwani Upadhyay has already been granted regular bail.
With this, the Court ordered that no coercive action against the applicant/accused be taken till the next date of hearing. However, Chaudhary has been directed to join the investigation as and when required and to co-operate in the same.
He has also been directed not to try to influence the witnesses or to tamper with the evidence.”
During the course of the hearing, the SHO agreed to supply the video footage of the incident, showing the presence of the applicant/accused and the words uttered by the applicant/accused.
Therefore, the SHO undertook to file the transcript of the words uttered by the applicant/accused in the aforesaid video footage, on the next date of hearing.
On the other hand, the counsels for Chaudhary submitted that the applicant/accused is not named in the FIR, was not present at the spot, and that he hadn’t raised any communal slogans or uttered any words to hurt the religious sentiments of another community.
In related news, a Delhi Court on Thursday rejected bail pleas of 3 men – Preet Singh, Deepak Singh Hindu, and Vinod Sharma who have been arrested in connection with alleged inflammatory and anti-Muslim sloganeering at Jantar Mantar.
While rejecting their bail pleas, the Link Metropolitan Magistrate Udbhav Kumar Jain observed that it is the duty of every citizen that while he enjoys his right to express himself, he preserves religious harmony.
Importantly, while dealing with the bail plea of Accused Deepak Singh, the Court had observed thus:
“In one of the clippings, applicant/accused, as identified by the IO in the video clipping, can be seen making scathing remarks which are undemocratic and uncalled for from a citizen of this country where principles like Secularism hold the value of basic feature imbibed in the Constitution.”
Earlier, on Wednesday a Delhi Court had allowed the bail plea of former Delhi BJP Spokesperson and Supreme Court lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay, who was arrested and remanded to two days judicial custody in connection with the anti-Muslims slogans raised at an event organized at Jantar Mantar.
The order has been passed by a Court of Metropolitan Magistrate Udbhav Kumar Jain.
“As far as the offence u/s 153A IPC is concerned except for mere assertion, there is nothing on record to show that the alleged hate speech to promote enmity between different groups was done in the presence or at the behest of the applicant/accused. Even during hearing, this Court has inquired from Ld. APP and so far, there is nothing against the accused in the alleged video,” the Court observed.
Videos of mob at the gathering shouting slogans openly calling for the killing of Muslims had emerged on Sunday. Lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay, who has now been granted bail by the Court, claimed that the slogans were raised after the meeting organized by him was over. He had organized a meeting calling for the repeal of “colonial-era laws”.