Rajesh Pandey
The Allahabad High Court has rejected bail plea of four men accused of acid attack on a woman bank manager in 2022 in Kaushambi district after she purportedly refused to sanction some loan applications which were not qualified for it.
Observing that ‘the victim being lady has suffered acid attack and is still recovering from scars of it’, Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery dismissed bail applications of four accused after considering the evidence collected during the investigation about the purchase of acid, the actual involvement of some applicants and the supporting roles assigned to other applicants.
As per the prosecution’s case, the victim lady was working as a bank manager was waylaid by two bike-borne miscreants while she was heading for her office, and they threw acid on her. During the case investigation, the names of the applicant and other co-accused came to light. They all acted as brokers in the bank to facilitate the sanctioning of loans etc.
As per the allegations against the accused, she was pressurised when the victim rejected some of the loan applications while exercising her duties as bank manager. However, when she did not succumb to their pressure it led her to suffer an acid attack. Seeking bail in the case, the accused persons moved the high court to submit that they have been languishing in jail since August 2022 and that there is no likelihood of early trial.
The court in its order dated May 9 while dismissing the plea observed, “In the aforesaid circumstances considering nature and manner of occurrence, where victim being a lady has suffered acid attack and is still recovering from scars of it as well as taking note of other factors of law in regard to bail which is mentioned above and that she has to pay cost for not being succumbed to pressure to undertake an illegal act to sanction such loan applications which were not qualified for it.”
While rejecting the bail application, the court relied a judgment of the apex court in Suresh Chandra Jana vs State of West Bengal and Others, (2017) 16 SCC 466. In this case, while rejecting the acquittal of an accused as ordered by the high court in an acid attack case, this Court observed that the acid attack has transformed itself to a gender-based violence, which causes immense psychological trauma resulting in hurdle in overall development of the victim.
