Jharkhand BJP MLA Dhullu Mahato from Baghmara in Dhanbad district, convicted in the 2013 case of forcibly freeing an extortionist Rajesh Gupta from police custody, surrendered in the lower court of Dhanbad on Monday.
Incidentally, the Jharkhand High Court in December last year, while hearing the revision petition of Mahato, had ordered him to surrender in a month.
The period of one month would have been completed on Tuesday.
As the advocates had observed a pen-down strike in line with the call of the Jharkhand Bar Council to protest the hike in court fees, Mahato surrendered by reaching the court of the sub-divisional judicial magistrate of Dhanbad Abhishek Srivastava without his advocate. He was sent to judicial custody.
Incidentally, on October 9, 2019, the court of Dhanbad’s sub-divisional judicial magistrate, had sentenced five accused, including the MLA, to one and a half years of simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs 9,000. At the same time, the court had acquitted an accused named in the case, Basant Sharma.
The accused challenged the sentence order by filing a total of four appeals in the sessions court on November 4, 2019. The sessions court dismissed the appeal of the MLA and others in August 2022, which was challenged by the MLA and others by filing a revision petition in the Jharkhand High Court. The Jharkhand high court in December last year rejected the revision petition.
According to the Jharkhand HC rules, a person who has been convicted and sentenced by a subordinate court can only be entitled to prefer a revision before the high court after surrendering and being sent to judicial custody.
In the present case, Mahato had moved an application before the high court to forgo custody while preferring the revision.
The high court after hearing the petition filed by the legislator did not find merits in the same and dismissed it.
However, there is no threat of his losing Assembly membership as the Supreme Court 2013 order states that for losing membership the minimum punishment should be two years.