Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the police to register a case against five policemen at Amboli police station for allegedly thrashing a biker, Sameer Shaikh, 29, last year, for failure to pay a fine for riding without a helmet.
Shaikh’s medical reports revealed that he had suffered serious injuries in the assault. Acting on the complaint, a bench of Justices Ranjit More and N J Jamadar directed the police to file a First Information Report (FIR) against the concerned police officers.
Significantly, in the same case, the police had also filed a chargesheet against Shaikh for using criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his duty under section 353 of the Indian Penal Code.However, Shaikh was granted pre-arrest bail by the magistrate’s court in that case.
On December 14, 2018, Shaikh was caught riding a bike without a helmet near Jogeshwari railway station. The traffic policeman on duty asked him to pay the fine, but he refused, which led to a verbal altercation between them.
When matters escalated, Shaikh began recording the incident on his phone, which irked the policeman, who arrested him.Shaikh was taken to the beat chowky and allegedly thrashed by five policemen, including a female police constable.
Shaikh repeatedly approached senior police officers to register an FIR against police constable Sharad Sanap, assistant police inspector Sontakke, inspector Sagar, woman hawaldar Sangeeta Kamble and police hawaldar Sagar Kodwilkar. Instead, he was booked by police for preventing them from discharging their duty.
Taking serious note of the matter, on February 4, the Dindoshi court had reprimanded police for taking the law into their hands to recover a fine for helmetless riding.
