Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Saturday cancelled the bail granted to Shiv Sena (Shinde) corporator Ramesh Mhatre, who was booked for assaulting doctors and nurses of a civic hospital.
The high court took suo motu cognisance of the bail, granted on Juky 14 by a court in Kalyan, to Mhatre and four other accused persons.
In a special hearing on Saturday, the high court directed Mhatre and the four others to surrender before police by 5 pm on July 19.
The next hearing in the case has been scheduled for July 22.
A bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad heard the matter at 3 pm and ordered the cancellation of their bail.
The bench pointed out that the Magistrate Court failed to properly consider Mhatre’s criminal antecedents while granting him bail.
Mhatre has been named in 18 criminal cases, including serious offences like murder and attempt to murder, the court said. Although he was acquitted in 17 of those cases, the lower court should not have ignored his involvement in several serious criminal cases, the high court said.
Taking note of the decision by doctors — particularly those working in government and civic hospitals — to go on strike on July 22 in protest against the assault, the high court appealed them to reconsider the proposed strike after bail was cancelled.
“In the event he does not surrender, or he is not reachable, the authorities will be at liberty to follow the due procedure for initiating steps for attaching his immovable property,” the court noted.