O R D E R

Dated this the 5th day of February 2021 This is an application seeking anticipatory bail.

2. The applicants are accused 1 to 5 in Crime No.

1490/2020 of Kottayam-West Police Station for having allegedly committed offences punishable U/s.143, 147, 186, 353 and 506 r/w 149 of IPC .

3. The prosecution case, in brief, is that on 28-12-2020 at about 11.00 am, the de facto complainant, who is the Senior Statistical Officer attached to the National Statistics Office at Kottayam, went to collect some data, and the applicants mistaking that he was collecting data with respect to citizenship bill, deterred him from performing his duty as a public servant and also destroyed the papers which he was holding and thus committed the offence.

4. The applicants state that they are innocent. The allegations are not true. They did not deter the public servant from performing his duty. Hence, they seek pre-arrest bail. They are willing to cooperate with the investigation.

5. Heard the learned counsel appearing for the applicants and the learned Public Prosecutor.

6. The applicants do not have any criminal antecedents.

They had allegedly deterred a statistical officer from performing his duty under