The Supreme Court on Thursday cancelled bail of Sekh Jamir Hossain and four other Trinamool Congress workers who had allegedly vandalised the house of a BJP sympathiser and attempted to rape his wife during the Bengal Assembly elections in 2021.

“We feel that the present one is a case wherein the allegations against the accused respondents are so grave that the same shake the conscience of the Court,” a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta said in a judgment.

The bench delivered the verdict while allowing an appeal that challenged a Calcutta High Court judgment granting the accused bail despite the seriousness of the offence.

“Furthermore, there is an imminent propensity of the accused persons adversely affecting the proceedings of the trial. It is undisputed that the complainant approached the Sadaipur Police Station on 3rd May, 2021 for registering a complaint in respect of incident dated 2 nd May, 2021, but the officer-in-charge refused to register the FIR conveying that he and his family members should go away from the village for their own safety.

Apparently, this approach of the local police lends credence to the apprehension of the complainant about the clout and influence which the accused respondents bear over the locality and even the police,” Justice Mehta, who authored the judgment, observed.

The Supreme Court noted that the FIR in the present case came to be registered only upon intervention by the high court vide judgment dated August 19, 2021, in a batch of writ petitions, directing the CBI to investigate all the cases where the allegations involve crime of murder and/or crime against women regarding rape/attempt to rape.