Bulli Bai app case: Mumbai sessions court denies bail to accused Shweta Singh

Refusing bail to a 19-year-old woman accused Shweta Singh in the Bulli Bai hate app case where Muslim women were virtually ‘auctioned’ early this year on Friday, a sessions court has said in its detailed order that accused tried that the Sikh community should be targeted for their illegal acts and the larger interest of society is at stake.

The accused persons had used Twitter handles that portrayed that they belonged to the Sikh community, when they did not belong to it, while they promoted the contentious app on social media. The court said the record shows the active involvement in propagating and disseminating information relating to women of a particular community.

In similar observations as it made for her co-accused 21-year-old Vishal Jha while it rejected his bail earlier, the court said Shweta and her co-accused are part are members of a group chat ‘Trad Mahasabha’ and that as a result of the discussion on the group the app was created on the GitHub platform. At this stage, it said her role cannot be bifurcated from that of the rest of the accused.

Singh’s advocate Chittranjan Das had argued on Singh’s right to freedom of expression to which Additional Sessions Judge Sanjashree J. Gharat said that the right guaranteed is subject to reasonable restrictions. “The accused along with co-accused are found committing acts of defaming womanhood,” it said. Prosecutor Kalpana Hire had strongly opposed bail to her and told the court that she was operating several social media accounts and had posted provocative content.