Bombay HC orders 2 youths to clean Versova beach as punishment for threatening restauranteur with fake gun

The Bombay High Court dished out an unconventional punishment to two persons accused of criminal intimidation by directing them to do community service for a month by helping in the cleaning of a beach in Mumbai.

On Monday, a division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharti Dangre was hearing an application filed by city residents Angad Singh Sethi (22) and Kunwar Singh Sethi (25), seeking to quash the FIR lodged against them on September 10, 2017.

According to the police, the duo had last year threatened a restaurant owner with a replica gun and demanded that he open his establishment and serve them.

The owner later approached Bandra- Kurla Complex (BKC) police station and lodged a case against them.

The accused persons’ counsel Ashok Mundargi told the high court that they have amicably settled the case with the complainant. “We are willing to pay monetary compensation too,” Mundargi said.

To this, the court said, “If we ask them to just pay monetary compensation, then their parents will pay the money and it will not serve any purpose. We want the accused to pay individually.”

Mundargi then said the duo would do community service.

The bench then directed the two accused to volunteer for the suburban Versova beach cleaning project, which is led by advocate Afroz Shah, every weekend for one month.

“In addition to this, the applicants shall also pay a sum of Rs 20,000 each to Tata Memorial Hospital,” the court directed and quashed the case against the duo.

Last month, the court had ordered three techies, who had performed Kiki challenge on the footboard of a local train at CSMT, to prepare an awareness video informing people about its potential danger and how it violates the law as punishment.