A social activist who accused the Railway Protection Force (RPF) of graft and submitted video clips before the Kalyan railway court has had the tables turned on him. The court has dismissed his complaint and ordered the railway police to investigate the activist himself.
Ambernath resident Satyajeet Barman on January 1 around 1.40pm had shot videos of RPF personnel around the court premises allegedly collecting bribes from people accused of railway offences at Kalyan station. His plea to the court was to take action against the personnel for extorting money from the accused and for bringing the accused in various railway crimes to the court with their hands tied. Barman had called the acts a violation of Article 21 of the Constitution.
However, in his order, judicial magistrate First Class AR Kamble dismissed Barman’s plea as “false and vexatious and filed with ill-motive to demoralize the RPF personnel in their official work”. The court held that the money the RPF personnel were collecting wasn’t bribe but fine imposed on the accused by the court under section 179 of the Railway Act for different petty offences.
The magistrate asked the senior inspector of the railway police crime branch to investigate the antecedents of Barman and also find out why he was videoshooting sensitive areas. When contacted, Barman said he will file an appeal against the order in the next couple of days.
