Mumbai, June 3: When law enforcers turn extortionists, the citizen looks with suspicion and is left in a dilemma, the Supreme Court said while cancelling the pre-arrest bail granted to Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel accused of assaulting and extorting money from a Rajasthan-based jeweller at Mumbai Central terminus in August.
A bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K. Vinod Chandran set aside a September 2025 Bombay High Court order that had granted pre-arrest bail to the three policemen — Rahul Bhosale, Lalit Jagtap and Anil Rathod.
“When law enforcers turn extortionists, the citizen looks askance and is left in a dilemma. To confront is to invite instant retaliation, and the option is only to succumb meekly to the uniformed authority, even when there is patent abuse,” the court remarked.
State challenges anticipatory bail order
The apex court was hearing a plea filed by the state government seeking cancellation of the pre-arrest bail granted by the Bombay High Court in September 2025.
On August 10, 2025, the jeweller was travelling with his eight-year-old daughter and was allegedly stopped by GRP personnel at Mumbai Central station while boarding the Duronto Express.
According to the complaint, a policeman allegedly stopped them for baggage inspection. During the search, officers found 14 grams of gold and over Rs 31,000 in cash, for which the businessman gave satisfactory explanations, as per the complaint.
However, he was allegedly taken to a room, threatened, abused and forced to sign a blank paper. The officers are accused of extorting Rs 30,000 from him, returning Rs 1,900 as “travel expenses”, while handing back the gold.
Supreme Court questions High Court findings
The apex court criticised the High Court for granting anticipatory bail through what it termed a “cryptic order” based largely on CCTV footage, delay in lodging the FIR and the officers’ clean service records.
After viewing the CCTV footage itself, the Supreme Court disagreed with the High Court’s finding that the complainant and his daughter showed no signs of distress.
“We are surprised that the High Court observed that there is no sign of distress on them,” the bench said, noting that the footage showed one of the adults “gesturing frantically with his hands” while the child trailed behind, which was “a definite indication of distress”.
The court also found significance in the fact that the complainant was taken to a closed room without CCTV coverage despite standard operating procedures requiring searches involving valuable items to be properly documented and recorded.
Court flags conduct of police personnel
“One other aspect which disturbs us considerably is the total insensitivity displayed by the policemen to the child accompanying the persons detained,” the bench observed.
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Holding that the allegations, if true, would erode the credibility of the police force and vitiate public trust, the court cancelled the anticipatory bail. However, it clarified that its observations were prima facie and would not influence the criminal trial.
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