Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to one Nilesh Rewale, a man arrested in connection with murder near Inorbit mall in Malad West in Mumbai.
On 28th June 2018, during wee hours accused along with his colleague Jitu entered into a quarrel with deceased person Sagar Pujari and two other transgenders named Salma and Puja over monetary negotiations related to potential prostitution services which were being offered at the instance of duo transgenders to the passersby late night which resulted in accused Rewale stabbing Pujari with a pocket knife leading to death of the Pujari while being carried to hospital for treatment after which FIR was registered with Bangur Nagar Police station under section 302 and 201 of IPC and the bail applications of the accused were rejected both by Dindoshi Sessions Court and as well as Bombay High Court citing seriousness and gravity of the offence.
Advocate Anand Pande who along with Advocate Anshuman Ashok represented accused Rewale in Supreme Court argued that entire incident happened in spur of moment and since only one single blow was inflicted which clearly showed that the accused didn’t have any intention to murder the deceased and also over the years slow progress of the trial severely jeopardised the rights of accused with nearly 25 prosecution witnesses still pending to be examined and petitioner already incarcerated for more than 5 years of pre-trial detention period whereas on the other hand the counsel for the state submitted that the trial was to commence shortly and thus bail at the relevant stage was not appropriate.
Division Bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Himanshu Dhulia expressed dissatisfaction to the pendency and delay of the trials in the subordinate courts pointed out by the advocates for accused person & stated that in such cases they had no option other than to grant bail thereby granting the bail to the accused on the terms and conditions to be decided by the trial court.