As the Air India ‘pee-gate’ case continues, a Delhi court has postponed Shankar Mishra’s release on bail. The former Wells Fargo employee has been accused of urinating on a woman aboard an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi last year. The court has listed the case for a hearing on January 30.
Extra Sessions Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla adjourned the matter on Friday, noting that the investigating officer was not present. Furthermore, the author’s lawyer did not receive a copy of the bail statement. Lead lawyer Ramesh Gupta, appearing on behalf of Shankar Mishra, opposed the postponement, calling for provisional bail to be granted.
The Delhi Police had registered an FIR against her on January 4 on a complaint filed by the woman with Air India. The defendant was arrested on January 6 and remains in judicial custody. Mishra’s bail plea was recently thrown out by the trial court.
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Earlier, on January 11, the Magistrate Court had dismissed Mishra’s bail petition, calling his alleged actions “disgusting and repulsive.”
“The alleged act in itself is enough to outrage any woman’s modesty. The defendant’s egregious conduct has shocked the civic conscience and must be disapproved of,” Metropolitan Magistrate Komal Garg said at the time.
Mishra has been accused of consuming alcohol on the flight and then urinating on his fellow passenger while drunk. The magistrate had pointed out that he did not deny the fact that he was intoxicated.
Mishra’s lawyer had previously argued that the alleged victim had a problem with incontinence and had urinated on himself. “The complainant woman’s seat was blocked. It was not possible for him (Mishra) to go there,” she claimed.
The complainant, in turn, had issued a statement stating that the defendant had adopted a campaign of spreading misinformation and falsehoods with the intention of further harassing the victim.