Hyderabad: The Telangana high court, on Friday, granted interim bail to actor Allu Arjun till Jan 21 in the Dec 4 stampede incident at Sandhya theatre, during the premier show of Pushpa-2, that left one woman dead and her child injured. The judge, Justice Juvvadi Sridevi, also granted interim bail to the four owners of the theatre, and protection from arrest to four more people belonging to the theatre. The latter were absconding ever since the FIR named them as accused.
Amid stiff resistance from the state's public prosecutor, Palle Nageswara Rao, who argued against any relief to the actor and requested that he made to file a regular bail plea on Monday, the judge said it would be unfair to make the actor accountable for the stampede when the distributors informed the police in advance about the benefit show and also about the arrival of the actor to the theatre.
The judge directed the superintendent of jail to release the actor on bail, on a personal bond of 50,000.
Agreeing with the argument made by senior counsel S Niranjan Reddy, who appeared for Allu Arjun, the judge said that though the police have slapped sections of law that charged him with negligent act that caused the death, prior knowledge about the likelihood of such a death etc, none of them are applicable to him in this case. The judge, however, said that the police can continue their investigation.
Though the PP argued that the actor was aware about his arrival causing a frenzy and that an acknowledgement given by the Chikkadpally ACP, Nageswara Rao, against an application for police bandobast cannot be treated as a green signal, the judge dismissed it saying that the police could not furnish any proof of having rejected the bandobast request. Even to the PP's argument about the actor being advised not to come in view of the likelihood of the crowd going berserk, the judge made a similar observation and said that the cops had no proof to corroborate this.
While appearing for Allu Arjun, Niranjan Reddy cited a Gujarat high court order that granted relief to actor Shahrukh Khan when he was charged with causing the death of a person at the publicity event for his film, Raees.
He was in a moving train and was throwing t-Shirts into the crowd which resulted in a stampede that left one dead. In the current case, Allu Arjun did not even indulge in any such action. He came and silently sat on the balcony. The death happened on the ground floor's lower balcony, he said.
The counsel, while contending that it was an unfortunate incident, said that the actor paid a nominal amount as compensation to the family of the deceased woman. The actor's counsel charged the police with not taking adequate precautionary measures and shifting their inability to foresee the situation towards the actor.
Responding to an observation the judge made that she would have given instant bail in this case if the accused was a common man, the counsel urged the court to treat Allu Arjun as a common man and not let his stardom become a hurdle for his personal liberty which a constitutional court is expected to protect. Further, referring to the remand report which stated that separate access should have been provided to the actor to enter the theatre, the counsel argued how it made no mention of the police rejecting permission for the actor to visit the premises.