Nagpur: The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court on Tuesday quashed Principal District and Sessions Judge Dinesh Surana’s suo motu action to file a criminal revision application regarding the midnight arrest of Ritu Maloo by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Maloo is accused in the Ram-Jhula accident case, which claimed the lives of two youngsters on February 25 this year.
“Neither did we get any clue from the order of Sessions Judge as to what is the reason to invoke the powers, nor after going through the order of Magistrate, we see any reason to hold that the order is improper, against the provisions of law or passed in absence of any propriety,” stated Justice Vinay Joshi and Justice Vrushali Joshi in the order and questioned Judge Surana’s actions concerning his suo motu intervention during the hearing.
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On September 25, the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) granted the CID permission to arrest Maloo after sunset and before sunrise. Consequently, the CID arrested her shortly after midnight on September 26 from her residence in Deshpande Layout, Wardhaman Nagar. However, on Monday, Judge Surana took suo motu cognisance of the midnight arrest and directed the registry to file a criminal revision application. The High Court quashed this action and labelled it illegal and unnecessary.
In its observations, the High Court underlined that there was no pressing situation that justified Judge Surana’s suo motu action and noted that it could potentially harm the integrity of the ongoing case. The judges pointed out that Judge Surana failed to provide any substantive reason for his decision to intervene. In his initial ruling, Judge Surana mandated the production of case records to ascertain the legality of the permission granted by the JMFC. He also issued a notice to both the CID and Ritu Maloo to submit their responses. This led to a petition filed by Shahrukh Zia Mohammad in the High Court which challenged Judge Surana’s suo motu action.
“At the most the aggrieved person by such order of Magistrate is the accused, who has no grievance at all. The learned Sessions Judge would have assigned some reasons to give signal that there are grounds which necessitates him to exercise suo moto powers. Apart from that, the order permitting arrest during night hours, has already been executed, as the accused was arrested, produced before the Magistrate and the matter has travelled much beyond. We see no fruitful purpose in testing the said order as the things cannot be reversed,” the court stated.
Advocate Amol Hunge represented the petitioner, Advocate Shreerang Bhandarkar represented Maloo, and Senior Advocate Firdoz Mirza appeared for the panel, with GP Devendra Chavan representing State.
Hearing on prosecution’s revision plea on Oct 4
The revision petition filed by the prosecution against the order of Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Archana Khedkar-Garad rejecting police custody remand (PCR) to Ram Jhula mishap case accused Ritika alias Ritu Maloo would come up for hearing before the District Judge-10 and Additional Sessions Judge S U Hake on October 4. Ritika Maloo was arrested on September 26 by State CID on charges under 304, 201,427 of the Indian Penal Code, read with Sections 184, 185 of the Motor Vehicle Act, after Additional Sessions Judge R S Patil-Bhosale had quashed her bail order and set it aside.
Accused Ritika was produced before JMFC Khedkar-Garad by DySP (CID) Hanmant Kshirsagar, who is the Investigation Officer, and had sought a ten-day remand for her custodial interrogation. JMFC turned down the State CID’s plea for PCR and Ritika was remanded to magisterial custody. She was sent to Central Jail on the same day. The State CID then moved the Session’s Court by filing the revision petition challenging the JMFC’s order. Additional Sessions Judge Hake then asked the defence to file its reply. Defence counsel Adv Chandrashekhar Jaltare would file the reply on October 4.
Meanwhile, defence counsel Adv Jaltare filed Ritika’s bail application before Additional Sessions Judge R S Patil Bhosale on Tuesday. Additional Sessions Judge Patil-Bhosale asked the prosecution to file its reply on October 5.
