New Delhi, March 31: The Supreme Court today granted bail to Bitihotra Mohanty alias Bitty Mohanty, who has been convicted for the rape of a German national in Rajasthan.
A fast track court in Jaipur, had sentenced Bitti to seven years of imprisonment in 2006. Bitti had moved Rajasthan High Court that upheld the lower court order in 2016. Thereafter, he moved the Supreme Court to challenge the high court order.
While his appeal was pending in the high court, he took parole in 2006 claiming his mother to be ill.
However, Bitty, who is the son of former Odisha top cop B.B, Mohanty, disappeared in 2006 taking advantage of the 15 days bail, changed his looks and started living in Kerala under a fake identity. He managed to get a job in the State Bank of Travancore with the help of forged documents and a fake identity of "Raghav Rajan".
However, acting on a tip-off, Kerala police arrested him in Kannur on March 2013 and subsequently sent him back to jail in Jaipur. After the high court dismissed his appeal against the seven-year jail term, senior advocate Sidharth Luthra approached the Supreme Court to seek bail for Bitti.
Hearing the case, the bench of Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice L. Nageswara Rao today granted him bail on the conditions that he would surrender his passport, furnish a bail bond of Rs 2.5 lakh and appear before Cantonment police station in Cuttack every week.
Rajasthan additional advocate general Manish Mallik had opposed Bitti's bail, saying the accused was convicted for a heinous offence and also had dubious record of jumping parole.
The twists and turns in Bitti's fate had a direct impact on the career of his father, a 1972 batch IPS officer, who retired in 2010 as director-general of police (fire services) though he could easily have reached the top of the state police hierarchy.
Known as an upright police officer, Mohanty was put under suspension in August 2007 after a Rajasthan court issued a non-bailable warrant against him in connection with Bitti's parole jumping case. Though the suspension was finally revoked on May 13, 2009, the damage was done.
