The pre-arrest bail pleas of three forest officials of the Idukki Wildlife Sanctuary, who were accused of falsely implicating a member of the tribal community in a wildlife offence, were rejected by the Kerala High Court recently.
Justice V.G. Arun rejected the pleas of V. Anilkumar, Section Forest Officer; V.C. Lenin, Beat Forest Officer; and Jimmy Joseph, senior grade driver; of the department. However, the court asked the other accused, K.N. Mohanan, K.T. Jayakumar, K.S. Gopalakrishnan, T.K. Leelamani and K.N. Santhosh, forest watchers, to surrender before the investigating officer within two weeks. These accused shall be interrogated and in the event of their arrest, released on bail on executing bonds, the court directed.
Evidence damaged
The public prosecutor opposed the pre-arrest bail plea by pointing out the dubious manner in which the tribesman was trapped and the heinous manner in which he was abused and assaulted after arrest. The public prosecutor argued that the accused had also tampered with evidence and hence their custodial interrogation was required for recovering evidence.
The officials had booked the tribesman after allegedly recovering wild meat from his autorickshaw. However, the meat turned out to be that of a cattle species.
Denying the pre-arrest bail plea, the High Court noted that there were prima facie materials to attract the offence under Section 3 (p) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 against the first three appellants, since they were directly involved in the seizure, arrest and registration of crime. The role of Mujeeb Rahman, the then Assistant Wildlife Warden, who apparently had a role in registration of the crime and the initial formalities, was also liable to be investigated.
Since Mr. Mohanan, Mr. Jayakumar and Ms. Leelamani belonged to the Scheduled Castes community, they cannot be prosecuted for offences under the SC/ST Act, the court noted.