The Madras High Court on Wednesday granted time till Monday for the police to reply to a batch of anticipatory bail petitions preferred by those associated with a case booked against Siva Shankar Baba under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act of 2012.
Justice M. Dhandapani accepted a request made by government counsel (criminal side) Raj Thilak to grant him time till Monday for filing a detailed status report on the investigation done so far.
The judge also asked Mr. Thilak to provide copies of the three first information reports (FIRs) to senior counsel A. Natarajan, A. Ramesh and advocates M. Mohamed Riyaz and D. Selvam, representing the advance bail petitioners, so that they could file similar petitions for any accused, who had been left out.
The court was told that Baba was the sole accused in one of the three FIRs, and he had already been arrested. The present petitioners Deepa Venkataramanan, Bharathi Ramanathan, Janaki Srinivasan, Dhivya Balasubramanian, Neeraja Jayaraman and R. Karunambikai had been listed as accused in the other two FIRs, and hence they had approached the court seeking anticipatory bail.
Deciding to hear all the parties after completion of pleadings, the judge asked the government counsel to ensure that the status report was filed by Monday.
