Mumbai: A sessions court early this month set aside the order of an Andheri magistrate court that had refused to cancel the non-bailable warrant issued against a doctor involved in an infant’s trafficking case. It imposed a penalty on him instead for not attending the case.
The doctor Mohammad Basheeruddin, a resident of Telangana is accused of selling a four-month-old infant stolen from a footpath dweller by an auto driver and then trafficked to Hyderabad by another person. The 56-year-old had sold the male child to an unsuspecting couple for Rs. 4 lakhs claiming that he got the child from an institution.
The magistrate court had issued a warrant against the doctor, who is out on bail, as he had not attended the court at the given time. He had then made an application before the court to cancel the warrant, which it had refused to do.
Additional Sessions Judge DD Khoche said in his order that issuance of the warrant is just and legal as though he was present in the court premises at the time, he had avoided attending the court when the matter was called out. It noted that as a result the police officers and the other accused who were brought from jail had to go back without progress in the case.
It went on that the subsequent order of refusing to cancel the warrant does not appear to be proper. It said that the magistrate is equipped to cancel the warrant or sufficiently penalize the applicant, but he never did so. It added that if the court did not cancel the warrant and the applicant was before the court, he could have sent him to jail, which too the court did not prefer to do.
While cancelling the warrant against the doctor, the court imposed a penalty of Rs. 3,000 on him as the other accused and the police party that escorted them had to return to jail without progress in the case. It said this was due to the fault of the doctor who did not appear before the magistrate at the fixed date and time. “In such circumstances, it is proper that the revisional applicant be appropriately saddled with a penalty,” the court said.
