Retired judge granted bail in rape case

Ranaghat (WB): At a time when controversy surrounding the alleged sexual harassment of a law intern by former Supreme Court judge raging, a retired judge here was on Saturday granted bail in a nine-year-old rape case.

Ranaghat Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Papiya Das granted bail to Shyamal Sengupta, a former ACJM, against a surety of Rs 5,000. Sengupta, a former chairman of the district legal aid service and who had presided over the Chhota Angaria case as judge in 2009, was accused of raping a woman who had gone to seek legal advice from him on June 6, 2004.

The charge-sheet in the case was submitted in September this year and an arrest warrant was issued against him. He had received interim bail from the Calcutta High Court and appeared today in the Ranaghat court to confirm it.

The judge's lawyer Dilip Chakrabarty said, "My client has been granted a bail against a bond of Rs 5,000." The woman's lawyer Karuna Ketan Das said, "There was huge pressure on my client to withdraw the case, but she didn't."