Woman gets transit bail in case lodged by U'khand IAS officer

A 29-year-old woman, who lodged a rape case against a senior IAS officer of Uttarakhand cadre, was today granted transit bail for two weeks by a Delhi court to appear in a Dehradun court in a counter case lodged against her by the officer for allegedly insulting him.
The transit bail gives the woman relief from immediate arrest.
The woman had lodged an FIR in Delhi on November 11 against J P Joshi, Additional Secretary (Home) of Uttarakhand for allegedly raping her on the pretext of providing her a government job and criminally intimidating her. The FIR was then transferred to the Dehradun police.

The bureaucrat, thereafter, lodged an FIR against the woman for alleged assault with an intent to dishonour him (section 355)and an intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace (section 504) of IPC and Information Technology Act relating to hacking.
The woman, through advocate Amit Sahni, moved a court here seeking transit bail for four weeks to approach the concerned court in Dehradun in the case lodged against her by Joshi.
Special CBI Judge Rajiv Mehra granted bail to the woman in event of her arrest on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 25,000 and gave her the relief saying there was an "imminent apprehension" of her arrest.

"Since, a case is already registered against the applicant /accused (woman), there is imminent apprehension of her arrest. Since the accused wants to approach to the competent court of law for relief, there is every justification with her to move the present application and hence applicant/accused is allowed to be released on bail in the event of her arrest on furnishing a personal bond of Rs 25,000.
"The applicant is granted two weeks time to approach the competent court of law at Dehradun seeking bail, as prayed for," the judge said.
The woman's transit bail, however, was opposed by the Delhi Police which argued the proper course is to approach the concerned court in Dehradun without asking for any transit bail which, if granted, is likely to be misused.