[Bulli Bai case] Mumbai court to pronounce order on bail pleas by three accused on January 20

A Mumbai court will pronounce its verdict in the bail plea filed by the three accused in the Bulli Bai case on January 20, 2022..After hearing the arguments of the accused and the prosecution for two days, Metropolitan Magistrate Komalsing Rajput reserved the bail pleas for orders today.The case was triggered by an app called 'Bulli Bai', which appeared on open-source platform GitHub, putting out details of more than 100 Muslim women, allowing users to participate in an 'auction' of those women.Complaints were filed by women who had been targeted by the app, after which the Cyber Cell of the Mumbai Police registered an FIR on January 1 against relevant Twitter handles and the developer of Bulli Bai for offences under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.The three accused - Bangalore student Vishal Jha and Uttarakhand residents Shweta Singh and Mayank Rawat - pointed out in their petitions that they had been falsely implicated in the case as they had not committed any offence.They also claimed that they had not created any mobile applications, nor were they connected to the other accused in the case. It was contended that they had submitted all electronic devices for the investigation, were co-operating with the probe and were in no position to tamper with the evidence.It was also pointed put that two accused, Jha and Rawat had tested COVID positive and were presently in Kalina quarantine centre..Advocate Shivam Deshmukh arguing for 21-year-old Vishal Jha stated that the prosecution failed to make out a case on their allegation that the account - @khalsa - had been used to malign the image of the complainant or any other women.He also pointed out that he had no criminal antecedents and highlighted that the offences alleged against him were punishable with less than 3 years of sentence.Meanwhile Advocate Sandeep Sherkhane for Rawat argued that his client did not have any criminal antecedent and did not make any app nor posted anything against any community. He also informed the Court that Rawat had just followed a link that was forwarded to him on social media..The Mumbai police opposed their applications stressing on the fact that the custody of the accused was required for further in depth probe into the case. Their reply highlighted that the accused had intentionally used Sikh names on their Twitter and other social media handles to create enmity between Sikhs and Muslims, and they also were in touch with the Sulli Bai case accused due to which they had deleted various social media accounts belonging to them.