Supreme Court issues contempt notice to Magistrate for remanding accused to custody despite apex court's bail order

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notice to an Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) and senior police officials on a contempt of court plea filed for allegedly flouting the top court’s order granting interim anticipatory bail to an accused person [Tusharbhai Rajnikantbhai Shah v. Shri Kamal Dayani & Ors]..A bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta particularly questioned the conduct of the ACJM who had remanded the accused to police custody, and warned to send the alleged contemnors to jai.Notice was issued to Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Kamal Dayani, Commissioner of Police Surat Ajay Kumar Tomar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Zone-4 Surat, Vijaysinh Gurjar, Police Inspector RY Raval, ACJM Surat Deepaben Sanjaykumar Thakar and others.The matter will be taken up next on January 29.Senior Advocate Iqbal H Syed and advocate Mohammad Aslam appeared for the petitioner. .In the petitioner’s plea for anticipatory bail in a case of cheating and criminal conspiracy, the Supreme Court on December 8 last year had issued notice to the State and ordered that in the event of his arrest, the accused be released on bail.The Court was told that following the relief, the accused reached Vesu Police Station in Surat on December 11 to join the investigation. He was arrested by the police the same day and released on bail in accordance with the Supreme Court’s direction, it was submitted..However, the Court was told that in violation of the interim protection, the accused was later asked by the police to remain present before the ACJM for the purpose of seeking the police remand. On December 13, the ACJM heard the remand application filed by the investigating agency and granted remand till December 16, the Court was told..The petition further said that after the conclusion of the police remand, the accused was produced before the magistrate where he stated that he was beaten up in the police custody in the presence of DCP.“The petitioner further stated that the complainant was also present at the Vesu Police Station and all the police officers and the complainant threatened and beat up the petitioner to extort a sum of ₹1.65 crores from him. All of this was disclosed before the Ld. Magistrate,” the plea said..As per the petition, th ACJM refused to release the accused and insisted on him filing an application for regular bail. After the accused did so, he was released on regular bail.“The directions of this Hon’ble Court have summarily been ignored and disobeyed by the Respondents/contemnors who have not willfully performed their duty to comply and implement this Court’s direction granting ad-interim anticipatory bail to the Petitioner and direction to immediately release the petitioner on bail in case of arrest of the petitioner,” the petition said.