Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: June 15, 2022 at 17:00 IST
The Bombay High Court granted pre-arrest bail to a Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) accused for urinating near a passenger’s berth at night on Tuesday, noting that a “custodian of Railways is expected not to act in an obnoxious manner.”
Pre-arrest bail was granted with the condition that he deposit Rs 25,000 to Railways and utilise the money to build a water cooler at Karjat railway station in Thane district.
The TTE, Munesh Chand Meena, who was suspended following the event, was putting his plea before a Single-Judge Bench of Justice Bharati H Dangre. Meena told the Bench through Advocate A. A. Khan that he repented for his actions and had made the decision to give Rs. 25,000 to the Railways on his own, to be utilised for water cooler facility at the Karjat railway station.
“It can be said that a ticket checker, a custodian of Railways, has engaged in an act which is unpardonable. The act may not require custody, but going by his conduct, the custodian is expected to not behave in an obnoxious way by urinating at the door, especially when he was in an inebriated state,” observed the Judge.
The Prosecution said that a female passenger was on the Hazrat Nizamuddin-Pune Duronto Express on March 7 when, as the train approached the station in Pune, she heard water dripping next to her berth and saw that someone was urinating there. She and her co-passengers noticed that the accused was zipping up his pants after she called the helpline, and one of them even recorded the incident on a phone. They quickly realised that the person was a ticket checker. A passenger filed the complaint, and the Karjat railway police station registered the FIR after recording the witness’s statements and seeing the video.
Justice Dangre concluded by saying that a departmental inquiry is ongoing, and the accused has already been suspended. Custodial interrogation is not necessary.
