Shahabuddin goes back to prison, lashes at Nitish Kumar

RJD leader Shahabuddin was sent back to jail hours after the Supreme Court cancelled his bail granted by the Patna high court. He had come out after 11 years in prison three weeks ago. The SC criticised the bail order that came in the midst of a murder trail. Shahabuddin said his supporters would give CM Nitish Kumar a fitting reply.

The Bihar government was one of the petitioners in the supreme court to challenge the bail. A bench of Justices Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Amitav Roy, while allowing appeals for the cancellation of bail, said that the law in regard to the granting or refusal of bail was very well settled.

Pointing out that the order passed by the high court granting bail to Shahabuddin gave no reasons for the decision, the Supreme Court bench said, “Any order devoid of such reasons would suffer from non-application of mind. It is also necessary for the court granting bail to consider, among other circumstances, viz the nature of accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence, his release on the impact on society and reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant.”

The bench said that on careful perusal of the records of the case and taking into account the charges proved against the accused, it seems that the high court erred in granting bail to Shahabuddin. The bench also took Shahabuddin’s infamous criminal history into consideration.