Mumbai: Police must be there to protect law-abiding citizens and not accused, said Bombay high court on Wednesday, questioning the ‘VIP treatment’ extended to Shiv Sena corporator Ramesh Mhatre, who was arrested for allegedly assaulting three doctors, including a woman, at the civic-run Shastri Nagar Hospital in Dombivli on July 6. The HC bench, headed by Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge, asked why had police offered to produce Mhatre via videoconferencing for his first remand following his July 8 arrest.The state public prosecutor Shishir Hiray explained that on his arrest, Mhatre’s blood pressure was 160 and hence, after the hospital visit and the paucity of time as the 24-hour deadline to produce an arrested accused before the magistrate was approaching, the police requested the local court if he could be produced via videoconferencing. The magistrate denied the request and sought his physical presence, after which Mhatre was initially remanded to police custody and then to judicial custody, before being granted bail.The HC directed the CCTV footage of the alleged assault and of Mhatre’s hospitalisation be downloaded and preserved in case it wants to view the footage on Monday, when it will hear the matter next. The HC instructed that the CCTV footage of the civic hospital, where Mhatre was admitted on July 8 till he was produced on July 10 and then again his hospitalisation on July 14-15 till he was released, be downloaded.On July 18, the HC had suo motu at a special hearing taken up the matter of three civic doctors being assaulted in the Dombivli hospital and stayed the bail granted by a magistrate to Mhatre and co-accused — Ramesh Pawar, Pramod alias Prakash Nikam and Akshay Karande. While the three co-accused were yet to be released, Mhatre was directed to surrender to the police by July 19, 5pm, which on Wednesday, his counsel Sanaa Raees Khan said he had.Pointing out that Mhatre is a “73-year-old with multiple ailments and only one functional kidney,’’ Khan said his custody is not essential as police have already seized the CCTV footage and its authenticity can be assessed during trial. To a query from the court, she said Mhatre “is a social worker’’, adding that the “backdrop of the case was it was an emotionally charged medical emergency… a female patient could have died’’. Khan further said that while on bail, Mhatre has flouted no conditions imposed on him.Mhatre is in judicial custody till Aug 3.The HC permitted an intervention application of the Indian Medical Association, Maharashtra, after its senior counsel S U Kamdar said it “stands by the three doctors who were brutally assaulted by the four accused”. Kamdar also strenuously submitted that the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC), whose employees — doctors — were assaulted, flouted the legal mandate to lodge an FIR within six hours of the incident.Advocate general Milind Sathe and Hiray said once an FIR was lodged, a second one for the same incident could not, in law, have been filed and statements would be recorded. Kamdar argued that the FIR was lodged only the next day and said KDMC ought to be made to answer whether political influence played any role.The state filed an interim application in the matter on Wednesday and the HC appointed senior counsel Ashok Mundargi as an amicus curiae (friend of court ) to assist it in the matter and asked him to file a fresh memo of the petition for the state by Monday.
