The Hindu : New Delhi News : Tihar officials granted interim bail

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Sunday, Apr 15, 2007
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Tihar officials granted interim bail

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Three Tihar Central Jail officials, who had been sent to judicial custody by a city court on Friday, were granted interim bail by the Delhi High Court on Saturday.

Justice B. N. Chaturvedi granted interim bail to Deputy Superintendent K. S. Meena, Assistant Superintendent Dhananjay Rawat and "chakkar in-charge" Mange Ram after hearing their bail petition.

Counsel for the accused took the plea that Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code under which the accused have been charged was a bailable offence.

The accused were also charged under Section 384 (punishment for extortion) read with 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the IPC. Counsel argued that Section 384 read with Section 511 attracted only a year-and-a-half imprisonment.

Therefore the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate was not justified in remanding the accused to judicial custody.

On Friday, ACMM Kamini Lau had sent the three officials to jail taking cognisance of a petition by a convict, Christopher James.

Christopher, a white collar crime convict and an under-trial in another white collar case, had alleged that the officials had beaten him up when he refused to help them in extorting money from other inmates and also in smuggling of drugs inside the jail.

He had also accused the officials of having forcibly taken Rs. 5,000 from him.

The petitioner, who has a Ph. D. degree from Cambridge University, had also produced documents pertaining to his medico-legal case in the court to support his contention that he was beaten up in jail.

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