[Bulli Bai case] First arrested accused Vishal Jha denied bail by Mumbai Sessions Court

A Mumbai Sessions Court on Monday rejected bail plea filed by Vishal Jha, first arrested accused in the Bulli Bai case..The 21-year-old engineering student was arrested from Bangalore and remanded to police custody and then sent to judicial custody after he had contracted COVID.Soon after, he had moved for bail, which was rejected by the Magistrate Court.The very next day, Jha approached the Sessions Court for bail.After hearing the submissions of both sides at length, Additional Sessions Judge SJ Gharat reserved the plea on February 5, 2022 and pronounced the verdict today. .The Judge observed that Niraj Bishnoi who is accused of developing the scandalous the BulliBai app had done so with the help of other accused in the case, including present applicant. “The said app is used for virtual purchase and sell of muslim woman. So also, it was tried to portraying that the said app is created by particular community. Therefore, it resulted into causing defamation, hurting the feelings of particular community and dignity and modesty of woman.“ the order states. The Court also noted that further investigation was required in the case which was at nascent stage. Till then, Jha’s role could not be bifurcated from the rest of the accused. In view of this, the Court noted that to investigate into the undetected aspects of the crime custodial interrogation is required, and rejected bail. .Advocate Shivam Deshmukh for Jha submitted the following: That Jha was falsely implicated in the case as he had not committed any offence;Responding to the Magistrate Court’s reasoning on Jha having technical knowledge of the subject, Deshmukh stated that if that was true, Jha would never have surrendered before the investigating agency;That prosecution failed to make out a case that Jha’s alleged twitter account @khalsa had been used to malign the image of the complainant or any other women;That the agency was already seized of his laptop, mobile phone and sim cards and, therefore, he was no more in a position to tamper with those articles which could be possible evidence.That Jha was in no manner associated or known to the other accused persons.That Jha excelled in was an engineering student and excelled in academics..The prosecution opposed the application by contending:That since Jha had been shifted to the COVID centre for his treatment, he could not be confronted with the information on the devices;That Jha had 6 Twitter, 2 Instagram, 1 YouTube and 6 Gmail accounts and a thorough investigation would be required. His account on the Github platform also requires investigation;That Jha was a member of the Twitter groups ‘High IQ Bruh’ and ‘Trad Mahasabha’ where the link to the Bulli Bai App had been shared and they wanted to further probe if Jha along with the other accused had indulged in similar offences..[Read order]