Man gets 3-year jail for getting into a scuffle with TC

MUMBAI: The sessions court last week sentenced a 25-year-old man to three years imprisonment for assaulting a ticket checker (TC) when he asked the accused to show his ticket at the Seawood railway station, Navi Mumbai, in February 2021.
The incident occurred on February 18, 2021, when ticket checker Dipesh Gopinath Mulave asked Tinku Mohammed to show his ticket. When he failed to show his ticket, Mulave asked for his identity card, he produced two cards, i.e., his Aadhar card and his Election Card, which had different names. Mulave then took Tinku to the Government Railway Police (GRP) Chowki, where a scuffle broke out between them.
Tinku caught the TC from his collar and threatened him. The on-duty railway constable on the platform took Tinku to Vashi Railway Police Station and a case was registered against him under sections 353 (assaulting or using criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging of his duty) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 147 (trespass and refusal to desist from trespass) of Indian Railway Act.
Additional public prosecutor Rajlaxmi Bhandari, representing the state, submitted the proof of offence punishable under section 147 of the Indian Railway Act by crystallising the presence of Tinku at the railway station through witness testimonies and the CCTV footage of the incident. They pressed against the offence of using criminal force against a public servant, also, deterring the public servant from discharging his duty.
Advocate Vasant Prabhu, representing the accused, submitted that the accused was falsely implicated in the case. He stated that the entire testimony of the prosecution witnesses was not proper and should not be accepted. He further stated that no charge has been proved against the accused to hold him guilty.
Considering the nature of the offence wherein the property of a railway has been misused and deterred a public servant from discharging his official duty by using criminal force against him, additional sessions judge Abhijeet A Nandgaonkar convicted the accused and sentenced him to three years imprisonment.
“Such incidents require to be dealt with stern hands. In such cases, no lenient view is possible considering the age of the accused and the use of muscle power. Such type of offence is against the society in general,” the court observed, adding that, “Quarrelling with a competent authority i.e. the TC, requires severe punishment to be saddled upon the accused so that a strong message will go into the public.”