Rajasthan court postpones hearing of Mohanty plea

Jaipur, July 24 (IANS) The hearing in a lower court of Orissa's senior police official B.B. Mohanty's plea for converting a non-bailable warrant against him into a bailable one has been postponed to Aug 1.

The lower court was to hear the plea Monday but as the magistrate was on leave, the court has now fixed the hearing in the case to August 1. Over a fortnight ago, Mohanty had submitted an application in a lower court here requesting the conversion of the warrant against him into a bailable one.

Mohanty's application said the Rajasthan police had June 6 submitted an appeal based on false and fabricated facts in the court.

"We filed the application with the court a few days back," P.C. Pradeep Sharma, Mohanty's advocate, told IANS.

Orissa Director General of Police Mohanty is facing charges of helping his son, Biti Hotra Mohanty, escape from jail as he had given a surety for his parole.

Biti, convicted of raping a German tourist in Alwar, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. He had gone on parole in November 2006 but did not return.

Sharma said Mohanty wants to provide his full cooperation to the state police in the inquiry but the investigating official was trying to arrest him by presenting "false and misleading facts".

"After considering the case diary it would become clear to the court that Mohanty's case is not a non-bailable offence," Sharma said.

Mohanty's petition said Section 225 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) clearly states that an offence is non-bailable when a person helps a convict, given life sentence or 10 years imprisonment or death sentence, to escape.

If a convict has been sentenced for less number of years than that, the person helping the accused in escaping does not come under the category of non-bailable offence, the lawyer said.

The court had June 8 issued a bailable warrant against Biti and an arrest warrant against his father and had given police time till July 7 to carry out the orders.