Araria Case: SC Orders Release of Activists, Terms Custody Order 'Totally Impermissible'

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the immediate release of two social activists – Kalyani Badola and Tanmay Nivedita – who had been in jail since July 10 for alleged contempt of court in the Araria gangrape case, LiveLaw

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The activists had been held along with a 23-year-old gangrape survivor

from Araria in Dalsinghsarai jail in Samastipur district of Bihar. She had been granted bail on July 18 by a local Bihar court but the two activists had been denied bail.

While announcing the bail, Justice Arun Mishra criticised the order which sent them to custody,

it “totally impermissible order by which they were sent to custody.”

Activists associated with the Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan (JJSS), to which Badola and Nivedita are affiliated, told The Wire that they are hopeful that the duo would be released by tomorrow.

On July 10 – four days after she was allegedly gang-raped – the woman was in the Araria district magistrate court to record her statement. She had asked that two activists, who had been looking after her since she was raped, be present when her statement is recorded. The permission was denied.

The woman refused to sign the documents and allegedly spoke sternly with the magistrate, upon which Mustafa Shahi applied charges of contempt of court and preventing public servants from carrying out duty. All three were subsequently sent to jail.

The FIR claims that the woman also tried to ‘snatch’ papers away from the investigating officer. “While recording their statement, the accused trio insulted the presiding officer by misbehaving with him and tried to obstruct the proceedings of the court. The survivor refused to sign the written statement saying that she would not sign until Kalyani and Tanmay have read it,” the FIR read.

The JJSS has denied the allegations made in the FIR and has said that the survivor’s ‘nervousness’ was mistaken for contempt. “While recording the statement in front of the magistrate on 10 July, the survivor was a little nervous. She was feeling disturbed due to her identity being exposed in the media and narrating the same events time and again for the last four days. Also, she was not getting any support from her family either. She only wanted to consult Kalyani before signing the written statement. But the court mistook this nervousness of the survivor for an insult and registered a case on this basis only.”