MUMBAI: Coming down on alleged abuse of power by police officers , the Supreme Court has cancelled the anticipatory bail granted to three Mumbai Central Government Railway Police (GRP) officers accused of trying to extort money from a Rajasthan jeweller and his family at Mumbai Central Railway Station last year.‘When law enforcers turn extortionists’: SC revokes bail of 3 GRP copsObserving that citizens often have little choice but to submit to unlawful demands by those in uniform, the apex court said, “When law enforcers turn extortionists, the citizen looks askance and is left in a dilemma. To confront, is to invite instant retaliation and the option is only to succumb meekly to the uniformed authority, even when there is patent abuse.”The May 27 order was passed by a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K Vinod Chandran, which set aside a Bombay high court order granting pre-arrest bail to the accused policemen - Rahul Datta Bhosale, Lalit Ramchandra Jagtap and Anil Sitaram Rathod.The court said the high court had ignored the Supreme Court’s earlier caution in the State of Jharkhand vs Sandeep Kumar case regarding abuse of authority by police officers. “The grant of anticipatory bail especially to a wayward police officer…. was frowned upon especially when there is a clear abuse of authority,” the bench noted.The case stems from an August, 2025, incident when a jeweller from Rajasthan was travelling from Mumbai Central to his native place along with his minor daughter. The three policemen, attached to the sabotage-detection cell, had allegedly detained the jeweller, his daughter and his cousin, who had accompanied them to the station.The three policemen detained the trio after finding a 14-gram gold piece and ₹31,900 in cash in the jeweller’s baggage. Though the jeweller provided a satisfactory explanation, the officers took them to an unlit room on the platform where the complainant and his cousin were verbally abused and intimidated, coercing them to part with the cash in lieu of letting them keep the gold piece without any legal action.The high court had granted relief in September 2025, citing CCTV footage that showed the policemen wearing nameplates and observing that there were no signs of distress on the faces of the jeweller and his minor daughter.The state government challenged the order, arguing that such conduct by uniformed personnel could not be tolerated. State’s counsel, advocate Bharat Bagla, argued that though a criminal trial requires a higher standard of proof and therefore custodial interrogation of the policemen was necessary.The apex court accepted his contention, and questioned the high court’s reliance on the CCTV footage, noting that the expressions of those detained were not clearly visible.“One other aspect which disturbs us considerably, is the total insensitivity displayed by the policemen to the child accompanying the persons detained,” the judges said while striking down the high court order.