THANE: Shiv Sena corporator Ramesh Mhatre, who was arrested on July 8 for assaulting doctors and nursing staff at the Shastri Nagar Hospital in Dombivli along with three accomplices, was produced before a Kalyan court on Sunday and sent to judicial custody until August 3. The court also remanded Sadhana Karande, the mother of the pregnant woman because of whom the assault happened, to police custody until Monday.
Despite the public and medical fraternity’s outrage at the assault, Mhatre was out on bail, granted by a Kalyan magistrate on July 14. On Saturday, during a special sitting, a division bench of the high court comprising Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad stayed the order, observing that the issue was a grave and serious one and there was “perversity” in the lower court’s order. The bail order has been kept in abeyance until further orders.
The HC bench directed Mhatre to surrender to the Vishnu Nagar police, where the FIR against him and his accomplices Ramesh Pawar, Pramod Nikam and Akshay Karande was registered, by 5 pm on Sunday. It also granted liberty to the police to initiate appropriate legal action, including attachment of the Sena politician’s immovable properties if he failed to surrender or remained untraceable. The case has been posted for further hearing on July 22.
