SC Grants Bail to RTI Activist Jayant Kumar Das Who Complained Against Two Orissa HC Judges [Read Order]

After spending more than eight months in jail, RTI activist Jayant Kumar Das, on whose complaint two sitting judges of Orissa High Court are facing in-house inquiry for committing irregularities, is set to come out as the Supreme Court has granted bail to him.

This is the second case in which he was arrested by the Lalbagh police in Cuttack on 8 August last year for allegedly posting defamatory remarks against Lord Jagannath and Gajapati King Dibyasingha Deb on Facebook.

Last month, the Orissa High Court had granted him bail in a cyberstalking case in which Das was convicted and sentenced to six-year jail. Das is presently lodged in a jail in Puri. His appeal against the conviction order is pending in a sessions court.

On Monday, the Supreme Court bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta granted bail to Das after finding that nobody appeared for the police in the case.

The court directed the trial court to fix bail bond amount and other conditions. Das was directed to cooperate with the investigation.

The bench recorded the argument of senior advocate Jayant Bhushan for the petitioner that the accused has been in jail for the past eight months for his alleged defamatory posts on social media.

“In our opinion, since there is no opposition to this petition by the State of Odisha, it would be appropriate if bail is granted to the petitioner subject to such reasonable conditions as may be imposed by the trial court. We make it clear that the petitioner will participate in the investigation and will not cause any hindrance in the investigation,” the bench said.

Few days before his arrest in August last year, Das was convicted by a Puri court for stalking, sending obscene messages, defaming and causing mental harassment to a lady by putting up her personal details and information on a pornography website.

Das has been in news for sending complaints to the then Chief Justice of India (CJI) TS Thakur, who had ordered to set up an inquiry committee headed by Punjab and Haryana High Court Chief Justice and two other high court judges. The committee is yet to submit the report.