The Bombay High Court recently denied interim relief to a man convicted by the trial court for outraging the modesty of a woman at Dadar railway station in 2017.
A single judge bench of the high court, presided over by Justice Bharathi Dangre, was hearing a plea for the interim release of a man who had filed a revision application against the sessions court’s order.
The magistrate court had sentenced the man to six months of imprisonment after he was booked under 354D of the IPC.
The man filed an appeal before the sessions court against the order of the magistrate court. The sessions court upheld the order of the magistrate court against which the man approached the high court.
The woman stated that in 2017, at around 9.30pm, while she was on a train, the man inappropriately pinched her and touched her bottom. When she raised an alarm, a crowd gathered and the man was handed over to the Mumbai Central Railway Police.
The high court in its order recorded that “…as there are several women who usually travel in local trains during night hours and particularly when the city of Mumbai is considered safe for women, where large woman population travel in the local trains fearlessly, even up to midnight, this act must be viewed with all seriousness”.
The bench noted that the Magistrate and the Additional Sessions Judge correctly considered the evidence presented before them and convicted the accused.
Advocate Subodh Desai, representing the man, argued that CCTV footage was not collected to corroborate the evidence.
However, the high court found this insufficient to disbelieve the victim’s testimony, which was supported by the police. As a result, the high court dismissed the application.
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