Ritika Maloo Remains Free as Court Dismisses Police Appeals
Nagpur, India- On Thursday, Tehsil Police faced another defeat when Additional Sessions Judge S.U. Hake dismissed their requests to take Ritika Dinesh Maloo into custody by canceling her bail. The police had filed these requests to overturn two earlier decisions by the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) court.
JMFC Archana Khedkar-Garad had previously rejected the police's attempts to re-arrest Ritika Maloo. Maloo is accused of driving her Mercedes car while allegedly drunk and crashing into an Activa scooter, killing two young men, Mohd Hussain Gulam Mustafa and Mohd Ateef Mohd Zia, on February 25. The police initially arrested her on charges of negligent driving and other related offenses. She was granted bail the next day.
On March 2, the police added more serious charges to the case and requested permission on March 7 to cancel Maloo’s bail and re-arrest her. The JMFC Court rejected this request on April 3.
The police then took the matter to the Sessions Court, which scheduled a hearing for July 12. Meanwhile, Maloo sought anticipatory bail from the Sessions Court and the High Court, but both requests were denied. She eventually surrendered to the Tehsil Police, but the JMFC Court released her, calling her arrest unlawful and criticizing the police.
The prosecution withdrew its request from the Sessions Court and again asked the JMFC Court for permission to re-arrest Maloo. This was again rejected after the defense lawyer, Adv. Chandrashekhar Jaltare, argued that the JMFC court couldn’t review its own decision and that the repeated requests were baseless. The JMFC court agreed and dismissed the request.
The police then filed two more requests with the Sessions Court, but Adv. Jaltare, assisted by Adv. Milind Chaurasia and Adv. Indrajeet Ghagarkar, strongly opposed them, calling the police’s actions irresponsible and unprofessional.
Finally, the Sessions Court dismissed the police's requests, marking another setback for them in trying to re-arrest Ritika Maloo in the Ram Jhula hit-and-run case.
