Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra who was shown “absconding” by police in a chargesheet filed in Alipore court in March 2018 will be present in the court on Wednesday to surrender and secure bail, the chemistry teacher said.
Mahapatra, who was teaching and attending other assignments in 2018, just as he is doing now, will have to secure bail to move a petition to get a no-objection certificate for renewal of his passport.
The JU professor said: “The absconder in the police record has little choice but to surrender in the court for an offence about which he was not aware until late February (2023). The court had issued an arrest warrant against me in January 2019 because I was described as absconder. That, too, I was unaware of till I got hold of the chargesheet last week. Securing bail is a must because a separate petition for the NOC could be moved only after obtaining the bail.”
The chargesheet was in connection with a case of alleged assault and snatching of Rs 5,000, which was filed at Haridevpur police station in April 2016 when Mahapatra contested the Assembly election as an Independent candidate from Behala East.
The Regional Passport Office in an email sent to Mahapatra on March 18 said: “Your application file is kept on hold for adverse police report.”
Sushil Chakraborty, the lawyer representing Mahapatra, said he will inform the court while moving the bail petition that his client was taking classes and supervising research at JU in 2018, the period when, according to the chargesheet, the professor and seven others “are still absconding to avoid arrest” in an assault case.
“We will pray to the court that Mahapatra be granted bail immediately,” said Chakraborty.
Mahapatra is keen to get his passport renewed because he wants to visit his two daughters who are studying the USA.
The professor, who had been arrested in April 2012 for circulating an Internet joke on chief minister Mamata Banerjee, had thought he was eligible for a normal renewal of passport after theSupreme Court scrapped the section under which he had been charged and the Alipore court absolved him in January.
In an interview with The Telegraph on January 19 Mahapatra said he was eager for the passport renewal, without realising his ordeal was yet to be over.