BENGALURU: The High Court on Thursday granted bail to V Shashidhar, president of Akhila Karnataka Police Mahasangha, and two others — Basavaraj Koramar, former police constable of Dharwad and one Gurupadaiah, the husband of a woman police constable from Davangere.
Shashidhar arrested on June 2 on various charges, including sedition, for launching a campaign instigating police personnel to go on a day’s mass leave demanding fulfillment of long-pending welfare measures. A city civil and sessions court had rejected Shashidhar’s bail plea on July 5.
“From a perusal of the smattering material made available, it is evident that Shashidhar has been aggressively espousing the cause of the lower rungs of the police force and the appalling conditions of service under which they function. There is no evidence of the number of members of the association that Shashidhar is said to have formed, there is no indication of the number of ‘fans’ in the police force, who had responded to his call for a mass agitation’”, Justice Anand Byrareddy observed, while granting bail.
The judge further stated, “It is evident that the postings by Shashidhar on his Facebook account and possibly on the basis of emails generated from a machine belonging to Shashidhar that may have been closely monitored (without authority of law?) it is deduced by the respondents that he was actively inciting members of the police force to apply mass leave and engage in rallies to further their demands.”
The bail conditions include the accused shall not call for any agitations by police force. They shall also not call for any collective action by the police force to do or not to do any act, not to tamper with witnesses, attend court and cooperate with investigation and not to leave the jurisdiction of the trial court without its prior permission. The accused were also asked to execute bonds of `50,000 each along with surety of like sum.