"Allegations made to humiliate:" Gujarat High Court grants anticipatory bail to Senior Advocate IH Syed

The Gujarat High Court last week granted anticipatory bail to former Assistant Solicitor General and Senior Advocate IH Syed in an extortion case [IH Syed v State of Gujarat]..Justice Nikhil S Kariel was of the opinion that the case seemed to have been instituted with the aim to injure or humiliate Syed particularly since he was a soft target.“That the present applicant being a designated Sr. Advocate of this Court, the allegations clearly appear to have been designed to injure and/or humiliate the present applicant, more particularly the applicant being a soft target,” said the single-judge..This order comes shortly after the Additional Sessions Court denied anticipatory bail to Syed in the matter on May 30, and a coordinate bench of the High Court refused to quash the complaint on 2 June..Syed moved the application apprehending arrest for the offences of offences of extortion, criminal conspiracy, unlawful assembly, rioting, voluntarily causing hurt, intentional insult, criminal intimidation and wrongful confinement..As per the First Information Report (FIR), Syed along with the other accused, forced the informant to sign an agreement that was contrary to his own interests and on refusal, they abused him.It was also alleged that the informant’s family was threatened and attempts to intimidate him were made with the threat of a fake rape case..Syed submitted that the incident took place at the residence of the State’s former Chief Minister (CM) where they met to settle their disputes. It was further submitted that the ex-CM also wrote a letter defending Syed, which stated that he was only there on the ex-CM’s invitation..The public prosecutor as well as the informant’s counsel vehemently opposed the application on several grounds stating that Syed was non-cooperative during the investigation.It was further submitted that the letter written by the former CM amounted to interference with the investigation..The court, on examining all the material, opined that the ambit of the FIR was very narrow and the prosecutor’s justification for custodial investigation could not be countenanced.“Insofar as the allegations in the present FIR are concerned, it appears that while the presence of the present applicant is not denied by the applicant himself, at the same time as per the FIR, there are no specific allegations levelled against the applicant in particular,” the Court said. .Justice Kariel further highlighted that the letter written by the former CM was addressed to the present Chief Minister, and only narrated his version of the incident therefore, it ought not to be considered as influencing the investigation.“The meeting in question had taken place at the residence of the former Chief Minister and the former Chief Minister was a witness to the entire incident and in such capacity, the former Chief Minister had submitted his version of the incident to the present Chief Minister”, opined the Court..Therefore, relying on decisions by the Supreme Court, the single-judge concluded that the discretion of anticipatory bail must be exercised judiciously, but it cannot be that such grant was confined to exceptional cases only.With this, it was found that the scales of justice would tilt in favour of Syed and the application for anticipatory bail was allowed subject to certain conditions..Senior Advocates Mihir Joshi, Yatin Oza, Percy Kavina, Asim Pandya, Advocates Aniq A Kadri and Narendra L Jain appeared for the applicant while Advocate Yash J Patel, Public Prosecutor Mitesh Amin, and Additional Public Prosecutor LB Dabhi appeared for the respondents..[Read Order]