Indrani Mukerjea moves Bombay High Court for quashing of FIR in Byculla prison rioting case

Prime accused in Sheena Bora murder case, Indrani Mukerjea has approached the Bombay High Court seeking quashing of the first information report registered against her in a 2017 prison rioting case..Mukerjea was lodged in the Byculla Women's prison after her arrest in 2015 in the murder case. In 2017, a 31-year-old inmate had allegedly been killed by the prison officials. In retaliation, angry women prisoners had thrown cutlery and utensils on the officials. The FIR alleged that Mukerjea along with the other inmates had incited prisoners to shout loudly and throw pots and plates on police officials. Despite repeated orders to stop, the prisoners continued, which compelled the jail officials to call upon the police officers from Nagpada police station in Mumbai. The complaint was that one of the co-accused damaged government property by breaking the prison door, smashing it to pieces amongst other damage and injured the complainant and other staff in prison.An FIR came to be lodged in Nagpada police station under Section 353 of the Indian Penal Code for the offence of assaulting public servant to obstruct his duty. Mukerjea was granted bail by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at Esplanade, Mumbai.The FIR is now sought to be quashed by Mukerjea by way of the present petition. .Mukerjea's petition filed through advocate Sana Raees Khan has raised the following grounds: That Mukerjea has been falsely implicated as she was neither a part of the alleged attack nor was she involved in creating any unnecessary nuisance in the prison;Her statement in the FIR has not been recorded till date or no specific role has been attributed to her;Hitting prison officials and breaking doors is an allegation against co-accused and not against Mukerjea; The prison officials co-ordinated assaults against the prisoners to suppress the illegal custodial death at the hands of an officer; Mukerjea was injured after she was beaten up and verbally abused and threatened her not to file a complaint, and to prevent her from complaining about the same, the present FIR came to be filed against her;Five jail constables and warden are in judicial custody for allegedly killing the prison inmate, and the Byculla prison Superintendent has been suspended from duty. .In view of the above, Mukerjea has sought for quashing of the FIR against her. The plea is likely to be heard by a bench of Justices Milind Jadhav and Abhay Ahuja on June 1. .Mukerjea was recently granted bail by the Supreme Court in the 2015 murder case of her daughter, Sheena Bora.