Patna High Court Grants Bail To 5 Students Arrested In Connection With January 2022 RRB-NTPC Exam Protest Case

The Patna High Court granted bail to 5 students arrested in connection with the January 2022 protest over the Railway Recruitment Board's Non-Technical Popular Categories (RRB-NTPC) Exam-2021.

The protest took place over the alleged "inaccurate results" of the Railway Recruitment Board's (RRB) NTPC 2019 exam. Candidates were also opposing the decision of the Railways to hold the exams in two stages.

The Bench of Justice Rajesh Kumar Verma granted bail to the students on furnishing a bail bond of Rs. 10,000/- each with two sureties of the like amount each to the satisfaction of learned Court.

As per the prosecution case, on January 25, 2022, the alleged crowd including the petitioners armed with weapons came at the Sitamarhi Railway Station in huge numbers and blocked the freight train (Malgadi).

According to police officers and other Government officials, when they tried to convince the crowd to leave the railway track the crowd became violent and started throwing stones at them 3 Police Officers got injured and the engine of the train got damaged.

It was further alleged that the police while chasing the protesters had to fire 2-3 rounds to control the crowd and arrested 13 protesters including the petitioners.

On the other hand, the counsel for the petitioners submitted that the petitioners have clean antecedents and have been falsely implicated in the case. It was also argued that even though the petitioners are named in the F.I.R., however, there is no specific allegation of overt act against the petitioners and there is a general and omnibus allegation against the petitioners and the petitioner no. 1 is in custody since January 28, 2022, and petitioner nos. 2 to 5 are in custody since January 26, 2022.

Against this backdrop, considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the Court granted them bail. Advocate Kumar Shanu appeared for the petitioners. 

Case title - Akhilesh Pandey v. The State of Bihar [CRIMINAL MISCELLANEOUS No.13149 of 2022]

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Pat) 13

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