Guarantor and legal detais for bail with Mumbai Court
My uncle who is often going in India since 20 years got wrongly accused of a crime. He is being detained at Arthur Road Jail. As we are all in France, we can only proceed through the consulate until he is proven innocent (the accusations are ridiculous, and he is really ill so prison is even more dangerous for him).
As foreigners, we are having a hard time understand the Indian Legal System, and already got 3 different lawyers who tried to make us pay huge amount (French does not necessarily means rich, unfortunately), through western union. With no administrative paper whatsoever proving that they will defend him.
For now, the most urgent is the fact the he apparently got bail granted. However, we are getting a lot of contradictory comments, who are all vague and ask for a lot of money.
This is happening in Mumbai.
Here are a few questions to begin with :
1 - Is a Guarantor and a Surety the same thing ?
2 - If a Surety is required, can it just be an amount to directly pay to the court ?
3 - How are Bond and Sureties to different things (I suspect the english language here is confounding us). Or in a simple manner, what is a Bond ?
4 - Is cash bail the other way of calling the Bond ?
5 - What is required of the Guarantor to prove his/her validity as such ?
6 - How much in average cost a Guarantor ? We have been asked 1 lakh by our last lawyer (the Bond on the court paper was 30 000 Rs).
7 - Do you find the fees below reasonable ? If yes it going to be very hard for us to gather all of it :
"
1 lakh cost for surety/ gaurantor
Rs 25000 for my professional fees and
25000 for reports which includes surety report and police... This may increase if required or in case of any hurdles I shall inform you of the same."
8 - What is "surety report" and police, and what does it cost so much ?
9 - Does the follow up seems to be an appropriate and normal way to deal with the situation :
"If in case it's possible to take out Mr Karim immediately on the payment of Rs 30000 which will go to the Government of India, I shall do so. But this amount is excluded in this amount which is mentioned by me. In this case we can take out Mr Karim in a day or 2 and we can furnish the sureties after he is released out from jail. Or if u don't choose to do so, he will have to be inside in the jail till the time the surety/ Gaurantor is accepted by the Hon'be court of Mumbai." ?
10 - That lawyer said that the email sent to us was serving as an official guarantee. I do not know how it goes in India, but in France it is very old school, it has to be on paper. So what should we do ? We have been advised by somebody else, who only wishes to help (without money involved) to as for this :
" - Full Name and Adress Proof of your selected Guarantor, with a scan of his passport as well as his PAN.
- A scanned written certification that the money will be used (with the exact amount entailed) to release Karim Armand de Visme on your official Letterhead for Business Transactions. If you do not have a Letterhead, please do it on a 100Rs Stamp Paper."
Does this seem adequate and sufficient ?
I apologize for asking not one but 10 questions. My uncle as HIV and Hepatitis B. He enjoys helping people and planned to settle in India to Coach people (for happiness). Apparently, nothing has been proved against him yet, and he is simply being detained "in the meantime" of we do not no what. He told us they knew he was innocent, but that the Indian Justice (like the French one) was horribly slow. Therefore, before asking any questions on "how can somebody be treated like that on speculations", we need to take him out of Jail.
I thank from the bottom of my heart, anybody willing to answer those questions point per point. As to not get all mixed up. I would be really grateful if you could keep the order of the numbers to answer back too.
Looking forward for a great help.
Warm Regards,
Leo
Asked 9 years ago in Criminal Law
Religion: Buddhist
