Court grants bail to man, says IPC section invoked debatable

New delhi: Delhi court Tuesday granted bail to a man in a case related to northeast Delhi riots, saying one of the offences under which he was booked is debatable .

While granting the relief to Furkan, Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat said that section 436 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was applicable in a case of mischief in respect of destruction of a building, which was ordinarily used as a place of worship, human dwelling or as a place for the custody of property, but the vehicle which was allegedly burnt by the riotous mob was parked at a road.

The court said that the prosecution's interpretation, stating that section 436 IPC would be attracted since the burning of the vehicle was adjacent to a residential house which could have caught fire, did not appear to be convincing.

The court further said that besides section 436, rest of the sections under which Furkan has been booked were bailable. Furkan was arrested under sections 147 and 148 (rioting), 149 (unlawful assembly) and 436 of IPC.

From the reading of the complaint itself and the FIR, the vehicle in question, which was burnt by fire, was parked at a road. The same is also depicted in the site plan, where the place of incident is marked as A, which appears to be on the road, though adjacent to a house. Consequently, the applicability of section 436 IPC to the present case is debatable, the court said in its order.