Accused Prabhat Sharma did not turn up for hearing on Friday as he withdrew his anticipatory bail application
The Charudutta Deshpande case saw an unexpected turn on Friday when accused Prabhat Sharma (deputy head of corporate communications and corporate affairs at Tata Steel, Jamshedpur) did not turn up for hearing. To everyone’s surprise it came to be known that the anticipatory bail application was withdrawn.
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The first hearing of the court was scheduled to be taken place on December 21 but was shifted to January 7 after which the hearing had to be postponed to January 17 owing to the absenteeism of the judge.
The hearing was to be held in the Vasai Session court at around 2.45pm but it was learnt that Sharma hadn’t appeared in the court by then. If the advocates are to be believed the accused was ordered to anyhow be present in the court for the hearing that was to take place on Friday.
The court was astonished when Prabhat’s advocate Avhas Fonda submitted the anticipatory bail application in front of the judge. According to the rule had Sharma been present for the hearing on Friday and if he was proved guilty then he would be arrested immediately in the court without any further excuse or delay.
“We never thought that they would come up with such an idea. We advocates were shocked to see them taking such a step,” said G.N Patkar, one of the advocates present in the court.
“A person takes such kind of step either when he is sure that his application will be rejected or when he knows that the police will not arrest him. Whatever be the case the case has now come to a standstill from the court point of view. Anything and everything ca be done only if the police takes the accused in remand,” said V.R. Sali, one of the watching advocates in the court.