The Hindu : National : Gurumurthy gets bail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 01, 2005

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National

Gurumurthy gets bail

Staff Reporter

KANCHEEPURAM: The Kancheepuram Judicial Magistrate Court-I on Tuesday granted bail to columnist and founder of Swadeshi Jagran Manch S. Gurumurthy on Tuesday. The court had issued an arrest warrant against him on Monday.

Mr. Gurumurthy, accompanied by his counsel Sankaranarayanan, came to the Court around noon. When his case was taken up at 1. 30 p.m., defence counsel pleaded that the warrant issued against his client be withdrawn as Mr. Gurumurthy, who came to know about the developments through the electronic and print media, volunteered himself to appear before the Magistrate.

As defence counsel attempted to go into details of the case under which the warrant had been issued, Magistrate G. Uthamaraj directed him to confine himself to the bail plea and asked him to spell out the contents of the warrant issued. Mr. Sankaranarayanan said he did not know the contents as the warrant was yet to be served on his client. "However, my client decided to appear before the court on his own and hence the question of applying for bail did not arise," he added.

After going through the case documents, the Magistrate said the warrant issued on Monday did contain a clause wherein it was stated that the accused had to be released on bail after obtaining surety from a third person. Subsequently, Mr. Gurumurthy's brother-in-law K. Swaminathan submitted photocopies of his property as surety.

Mr. Gurumurthy said in a statement that the police had falsely stated to the Magistrate that he was absconding from March 24. Although the police sought a non-bailable warrant, the Magistrate issued a bailable warrant to appear before him on June 6.

"I appeared before the Magistrate today (May 31) and asked for the recall of the warrant, which the court was pleased to do on my furnishing a surety," Mr. Gurumurthy said.

The entire conduct of the police in filing a case against him was in breach of the undertaking given by the public prosecutor in the Madras High Court, he claimed. "I had challenged the FIR filed by the police in this case by a writ petition and the High Court had admitted the petition in February 2005. When the court was considering my application for stay of the prosecution, the public prosecutor wanted time to file a counter affidavit and gave an oral undertaking that meanwhile the police would maintain the status quo and would not arrest me. Afterwards the matter came up for hearing on at least four occasions and each time the Government got the hearing adjourned."

Mr. Gurumurthy said he was taking legal advice to launch appropriate proceedings in the High Court for contempt and also to quash the prosecution.

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