Param Bir, Sachin Waze--a dismissed Mumbai police officer currently in jail in the Antilia bomb scare case and the Mansukh Hiran murder case. (File) The Bombay High Court on Friday set aside a proclamation that Riyaz Bhati, an accused along with former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh and others in an extortion case, is an absconder.
A single-judge bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere quashed the proclamation while hearing a petition filed by Bhati, who stated that a co-accused also declared as absconding–Vinay Singh–had already been relieved of the absconder tag by the High Court on December 1.
Justice Mohite-Dere, while granting the reprieve, noted that since the prosecution had not challenged the decision in Singh’s case, Bhati also deserved the same reprieve.
The High Court judge wrote that though the order to issue a proclamation “cannot be faulted with”, the proclamation was “being contrary to the mandate of”Section 82 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Param Bir, Sachin Waze–a dismissed Mumbai police officer currently in jail in the Antilia bomb scare case and the Mansukh Hiran murder case–Sumit Singh and Alpesh Patel had allegedly extorted cash and valuables worth Rs 11.92 lakh from Bimal Agarwal, a hotelier and civic contractor. The case was initially registered at the Goregaon police station but was later transferred to the Crime Branch.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
