HC grants bail to hawker arrested for killing shopkeeper in 2019

The Bombay High Court granted bail to hawker Vishwas Bovane, accused of stabbing a plywood shop owner, citing prolonged pre-trial incarceration and trial delays.

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday granted bail to a hawker accused of stabbing a plywood shop owner in 2019 following a dispute in the MIDC area in Andheri, primarily on account of prolonged pre-trial incarceration and significant delays in the trial proceedings. The vendor had been arrested five years ago.

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According to the police, the conflict arose when Shiv Kumar Sharma, the 59-year-old plywood store owner in the Mahakali Caves area of Andheri East, requested the illegal vendor, Vishwas Ganpat Bovane, relocate his food cart. This led to heated arguments, which prompted Sharma to file a complaint with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) regarding Bovane’s use of a gas cylinder on the road. Following the complaint, the BMC took action against Bovane.

In retaliation, Bovane allegedly threatened Sharma’s life, a threat that Sharma reported to the MIDC police station. On October 9, 2019, while Sharma was on his way to lunch, he was stabbed multiple times by Bovane. The MIDC Police arrested Bovane shortly after the incident. Despite receiving medical attention, Sharma succumbed to his injuries thirteen days later.

Bovane had applied for bail, contending that he had endured a prolonged pre-trial incarceration and that the trial proceedings had been significantly delayed.

In response, additional public prosecutor Kiran C Shinde contended that the trial could be completed within a timeframe laid down by the court and asserted that there was substantial evidence against Bovane, warranting his continued detention. The prosecutor also expressed a commitment to expedite the trial.

However, Justice Manish Pitale’s bench granted bail to Bovane, observing that he had already been incarcerated as an undertrial for about five years.

“The charge in the present case was framed as far back as on April 22, 2022, and yet, not a single witness is examined and particularly, the fact that after an order was passed by this court in earlier bail application in 2023, whereby the trial court was requested to expedite the trial, in effect, there has been no progress before the trial court,” justice Pitale said.

The court also took cognizance of the recent pronouncements by the Supreme Court, which emphasized the power of the constitutional courts to grant relief of bail on the accepted principle that bail is a rule and jail is an exception.

It clarified that merely because an undertrial is facing prosecution for serious offences, it cannot be a ground for the constitutional courts not to exercise power to enlarge the accused undertrial on bail, who has suffered long period of incarceration and there is remote possibility of the trial being completed within a reasonable time.