The Madras High Court has granted anticipatory bail to a young biker booked for performing stunts on the busy Anna Salai here on condition that he campaigns against reckless riding of motorcycles and drunken driving on his Instagram account, which has over 40,000 followers.
Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira also directed the 22-year-old B.Tech dropout, Gotla Alex Binoy, to make an awareness video highlighting the dangers involved in riding motorcycles without helmets and driving four-wheelers without wearing seat belts and upload it on his Instagram account.
The judge further ordered that the advance bail petitioner should be present at the traffic signal in Teynampet-Mount Road junction on every Monday for three weeks and distribute pamphlets containing awareness messages on road safety between 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The cost for printing the pamphlets should be borne by the petitioner, and he should also file an affidavit in the court undertaking not to indulge in reckless driving and causing panic and hazard to other motorists and pedestrians on public roads, the judge ordered.
Apart from these conditions, Justice Chandira also directed the petitioner to report before the duty doctor at the trauma ward of the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai and assist the ward boys in taking care of road accident victims for three weeks.
Since the distribution of the pamphlets had to be done on Mondays, the petitioner was asked to attend the trauma ward on all other days of the week. “He shall also submit a one page report daily about his experience in the trauma ward to the duty doctor and thereafter, the Dean shall forward those reports to this court,” the judge added.
The police had booked the petitioner and others after a video of them indulging in motorcycle stunts on the arterial road went viral on social media. While some of them were arrested and granted bail by a lower court, the petitioner had approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail.
