[Bulli Bai case] "Larger interest of society at stake:" Mumbai Court rejects bail of youngest accused Shweta Singh

The Mumbai Sessions Court on Friday rejected a bail plea filed by the youngest accused, 19-year-old Shweta Singh, in the Bulli Bai app case [Kumari Shweta Singh vs State of Maharashtra]. .Additional Sessions Judge SJ Gharat said larger interest of the society has to be kept in mind and that evidence pointed towards accused targeting women from a particular community."Record shows the active involvement in the propagating and disseminating the information/ data relating to woman of particular community. So also, they tried that Sikh Community should be targeted for said illegal acts. The largest interest of society is at stake. As a result, at this stage, the prayer of accused for release on bail can't be granted," the Court said.It also said that Shweta, with an intention to malign the Sikh community, had created bogus twitter identities using Sikh names to mislead the public.."The accused along with co-accused found committing act of defaming woman hood. Moreover, they tried to portray that said act is committed by Sikh Community and changed their Twitter handle names," the Court noted..Shweta claimed that she was wrongfully accused in the case. She stated that she has cooperated with the authorities and her equipment and account have already been seized and there was nothing left to recover.She went so far as to say that her detention will cause issues in her marriage..As regards the offence, she emphasised that she had not made any abusive remarks. Merely tagging a photo and tweeting aren't illegal, she contended.She also claimed she only joined the arranged Twitter group as a friend and alleged that her freedom of expression was being ignored..Her last argument was that extended detention for an offence punishable by a term of less than seven years would be considered a pre-judicial sentence. .The prosecution, while objecting to the request for bail, brought to the Court's attention that Shweta had been in touch with the other accused in the case through social media app Instagram. She was alleged to be an active social media user who posted provocative content. .The Court took note of the prosecution's contention that Shweta was a member of the chat group "Trad Mahasabha," and that Neeraj Bishnoi created the app on the open-source platform GitHub after discussions in the group..“The investigation is still in progress. The role of the accused can’t be bifurcated at this stage from the rest of the accused. The Mumbai police has already sought custody of Bishnoi from Delhi police who arrested him and if at this stage the accused is granted bail the possibility of tampering with evidence can’t be ruled out,” the Court added..The bail plea was, therefore, rejected with the Court observing that records showed the active involvement of the accused in propagating information relating to women from a particular community..The case was sparked by an app called 'Bulli Bai,' which was launched on the open-source website GitHub and published data of over 100 Muslim women, allowing anyone to bid on them in a 'auction.'After a first information report (FIR) was filed on January 1 against relevant Twitter accounts and the creator of Bulli Bai for crimes under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act based on complaints from women targeted by the app, the defendant, along with two others, were arrested by the Mumbai Police Cyber Cell.[Read Order]