A sessions court, on Tuesday, rejected the bail application of a man booked for being part of a mob that destroyed hospital property after a patient admitted there died during treatment.
Additional Sessions Judge Abhijeet Nandgaonkar said, in his order denying the man bail, that he was considering the seriousness of the offence in the pandemic in which law was taken into hand. The miscreants in the unlawful assembly not only put their own lives at danger, but also that of the public, the court said.
It continued that the mob not only caused loss to the hospital property, but prevented the medical staff from conducting post mortem of the dead body and refused to pay the bill of the deceased patient. This amounts to illegal interference in the due process of medical practice of the hospital, it said. “Above all, the members in the unlawful assembly prevented the police persons from doing their duty as public servants,” it added.
The court also said that other co-accused are yet to be arrested and that there is a likelihood of tampering the evidence at the stage of investigation as the direct involvement of applicant prima-facie appears.
The man Rakesh Sakpal had claimed in his bail plea that he did not have an active role in the incident and was falsely implicated. His advocate told the court that he was only passing by when he saw a crowd gathered and learned about the patient dying. The police had arrested him on suspicion, he said further.
The Kherwadi police that had booked the man told the court that Sakpal’s active role in the offence had been captured in the CCTV footage that had been seized from the hospital. He was booked last month under provisions of the IPC of assault or criminal force to deter public servants from discharging their duty, unlawful assembly, criminal intimidation and under a provision of the Maharashtra Medicare Persons and Medicare Institutions (Prevention of violence and damage or loss to property) Act, amongst other offences.
