New Delhi
The judge also noted that the case initially involved bailable offences under sections 115(2) and 126(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and did not include provisions of the SC/ST Act or Section 351(3), pertaining to aggravated criminal intimidation, of the BNS.
A Delhi court on Tuesday granted three weeks of interim bail to self-styled influencer Swatantra Bhardwaj, who is accused of assaulting a 38-year-old man during the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protest at Jantar Mantar on June 23, but expressed concern over his conduct on social media, noting that he showed “a tendency to boast about the incident rather than any remorse for it”. With regard to police inaction, the court said that they had not considered Bhardwaj’s arrest necessary for more than two months after the incident, even as he had joined the investigation upon being served notice and also produced the alleged weapon, a wrist kada (bracelet).
“In today’s era, intimidation of a victim no longer requires physical proximity,” the judge said, adding that social media had become “a new medium of intimidation”. The court observed that public commentary about a pending case could fuel hostility against a victim and his family and that protection under Section 15A of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act “extended beyond merely keeping an accused physically away from the victim”. the judge observed that “the competing concerns of victim protection and personal liberty had to be balanced” While granting interim bail.
The court also criticised gaps in the investigation, noting that the “police was yet to disclose whether the podcast’s channel manager had been examined, whether original footage had been obtained or whether electronic material had undergone forensic examination”. The court also said that the alleged abusive and sexually explicit messages sent from several numbers to complainant and his minor daughter “were not traceable” yet to Bhardwaj. “These are elementary steps in an investigation of this nature, and they ought to have been taken by now,” the court said. “It must requisition subscriber and account details, upload logs, IP addresses and original files from social media platforms linked to the podcast and other material relied upon in the case, and preserve the data for the investigation,” the court said.
