Finally, Rhea Chakraborty Granted Bail By Bombay HC
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2020-10-07 13:22:19
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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The Supreme Court has always batted for the principle "bail, not jail". Yet, the Narcotics Control Bureau managed to repeatedly get extension of bail in Rhea Chakraborty's case from the special court without having caught her with commercial quantities of drugs or without having sufficient proof (apart from call and WhatsApp records) of her involvement with the so-called drug mafia. It had completed the interrogation and it could not sufficiently show that Rhea would tamper with evidence or influence or threaten other witnesses if she was released. Still it kept opposing her bail plea as if she was a hardened criminal.
The Bombay High Court has finally granted her conditional bail today. She has been asked to deposit her passport, furnish a bail bond of Rs 1 lakh, report to the nearest police station everyday for 10 days after her release, refrain from meeting any other witness in the case and must not leave the country, must inform the Investigating Officer if she is going out of Greater Mumbai, give itinerary in advance, report before the investigating agency on the first Monday of every month for six months, attend all dates in court unless prevented by any reasonable cause and not tamper with evidence or impede the investigation of the case. These are standard bail conditions for any accused in such a case and could have been imposed even by the special court for granting bail earlier.
It is sad that Rhea Chakraborty was treated like a criminal by a section of the media from the very day her name cropped up in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide. Rajput's family and political parties jumped in and created a situation where Rhea was pronounced guilty even before her trial. The case even took the route of a clash between two states when Bihar accused Maharashtra (Mumbai police specifically) of not conducting a free and fair investigation in what it alleged was murder, not suicide. It might also be used as an election campaign plank (justice for a son of Bihar) in the ensuing elections in Bihar.
But whatever be the complications in the case, hard facts dictated that Rhea should not have been kept in detention for so long. Bail was her right and she was denied that due to the rigidity of the NCB. The reasons why investigating agencies need to keep accused persons in custody are well documented. Courts grant custodial rights based on those reasons. In Rhea's case, for the last 15 days, the NCB could not produce a single such reason. Yet she was not granted bail. That was a travesty of justice.
