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Don’t forget that under the Modi dispensation, Central investigative agencies have been on their toes from day one, forever investigating politicians of rival political parties, with quite a few of them ending up behind bars with no hope of getting bail in a hurry.
“Do you want everybody behind bars? Stop thinking that everybody should be behind bars. Somebody has been granted bail and stringent conditions have been put on him while granting bail. Why do you want to keep swords hanging over them? How is the impugned judgment (passed by Allahabad High Court) wrong?” the court asked.
The government sought time to reply, think up excuses, but the court said ‘no’ and dismissed the SFIO appeal.
This particular case involved a corporate entity and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). The Allahabad HC had granted anticipatory bail to one of the accused against whom the SFIO had knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court.
Some may think the apex court’s observation, and order, as a breakthrough. That it might be, but not for the tens of thousands of under-trials languishing behind bars in jails countrywide. For them, nothing but a bar-splitting earthquake will come to their rescue. Judges and justices are not always easily moved by the plight of under-trials.
As per a set of guidelines passed in 2021 by SC, if an accused is cooperating with the investigating agency and had not been arrested, that accused should be left free even after the chargesheet is filed. And the trial court should not refuse a charge sheet just because the accused was not behind bars, or hadn’t been produced in court.
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