An Assam court on Tuesday rejected the Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani’s bail in the case related to the alleged assault of a police official. The court remanded him to five days in police custody.
Mevani was re-arrested on Monday right after he was granted bail by a court in Assam’s Kokrajhar city for his tweet about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The new case was filed based on a complaint by a woman police officer named Debika Brahma, who had alleged that Mevani had “uttered slang words” and assaulted her while he was being taken from Guwahati airport to Kokrajhar district.
“He [Mevani] pointed finger towards me and tried to frighten me and pushed me on my seat with force,” Brahma said in her complaint. “He thus assaulted me during the execution of my legal duty of being a public servant and outraged my modesty by touching me inappropriately while pushing.”
Mevani was booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 294 (obscene act in any public place), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty).
Lawyer Angshuman Bora, who represented Mevani, had told PTI that the allegations were atrocious.
Bora said that the prosecution had not mentioned the allegations when Mevani was in police custody for three days in connection with the case involving tweets about the prime minister.
Mevani was granted bail in the matter by Kokrajhar First Class Judicial Magistrate Bhavna on furnishing a bond of Rs 30,000 with two sureties.
The court had also directed him not to “directly or indirectly make any inducement, threat or promise to any persons acquainted with the case”.
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