The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Kerala High Court order which cancelled the bail of a man belonging to a right wing organisation in an attempt-to-murder case.
A vacation bench of Justices Navin Sinha and Ajay Rastogi said that two other cases on the basis of which bail of Ratheesh alias Kara Ratheesh was cancelled are in related a protest and stopping the shooting of a film outside a temple.
We are unable to sustain the order of the High Court, the bench said, while noting that Ratheesh was on bail for nearly three years before his relief was cancelled by the high court for violation of bail conditions.
At the outset, senior advocate R Basant, appearing for Ratheesh, said the petitioner is head of All India Hindu Parishad and he was booked in the two cases which related to protests in which many other people were also involved.
The bench noted the submission of the state government that a charge sheet has been filed in one case and Ratheesh has breached one of the bail conditions by getting involved in two other cases.
Earlier, the top court had directed Ratheesh to surrender before the police and sought Kerala government's response on the plea challenging the high court order of March 18 cancelling his bail.
The high court had cancelled the bail granted to the petitioner for failing to adhere to the conditions of grant of bail given on March 21, 2018.
The high court had on March 21, 2018 suspended the execution of his sentence in the attempt-to-murder case with the condition that he would not get involved in any other offence and any breach of the condition would result in cancellation of bail.
Later the Kerala government had moved the High Court saying that Ratheesh has been involved in two cases registered at Perumbavoor Police Station and at Kalady Police Station and hence his bail needs to be cancelled.
Ratheesh has contended that there had not been any case where he can be said to have consciously and individually committed any crime, so as to forfeit the indulgence granted by the Court.
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