[Bulli Bai Case] All accused out on bail after three more secure relief from Mumbai Sessions Court

The Mumbai Sessions Court on Tuesday granted bail to three accused in the Bulli Bai case - Aumkareshwar Thakur, Neeraj Bishnoi and Neeraj Singh..Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Magistrate at Bandra had granted bail to three accused, and rejected the bail applications of Thakur and Singh, while Bishnoi had to withdraw his application for technical reasons. With today's bail order by the Sessions Court, all the six accused in the case have been granted bail.Additional sessions judge AB Sharma directed today that the accused be released on bail on furnishing bail bond of ₹50,000 each with one or two solvent sureties in the like amount.The accused were also directed to visit the cyber police station once every month and ordered not to travel abroad without prior permission from the court..The accused, in their application filed through advocate Shivam Deshmukh, sought bail on the following grounds:That they have been falsely implicated and have not committed the offences as alleged;That they hail from a respectable family and the act alleged is beyond imagination;That a Delhi court has already granted them bail for similar offences;That they are in no position to hamper the investigation in light of all electronic devices purportedly used for the crime having been seized;That the offences under Sections 153(a) and 153(b) of the Indian Penal Code cannot be attracted as only one religion was targeted and there was to enticement of disharmony between two religions;That they're not the creators of the app;That the co-accused have already been released on bail;The role of the applicants is of only following the app, which does not constitute any offence, as alleged;That even if the allegations are true, the court should take a "fatherly view" as the applicants require counselling and not incarceration;That since the punishment for the offences is less than three years, incarceration is unwarranted and will result in pre-judicial sentences;That they will not tamper with evidence..The special prosecutor vehemently opposed all the applications. He argued that a prima facie case was made out against them and the evidence collected so far clearly reflected the role of the accused.He further added that the actions of the accused had adverse ramifications on the harmony of the nation and also threatened its integrity. He, therefore, prayed for rejection of the application.AB Sharma however opined that since the trial had not commenced and would take a considerable amount of time to complete, no fruitful purpose would be served by prolonged incarceration. She therefore enlarged the accused on bail but with stringent conditions. .The case has its genesis in an app 'Bulli bai' which appeared on open source platform GitHub.The app put out details of more than 100 prominent Muslim women allowing users to participate in a virtual 'auction' of those women.It triggered an outrage and based on complaints by women who had been targeted by the app, the cyber cell of Mumbai police registered a first information report (FIR) on January 1, 2022.A separate FIR was also registered by the Delhi Police in relation to the offence.