NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Friday said an accused who had spent one year in jail and charges had still not been framed in the money laundering case against that person could be considered for bail as per its verdict in the Senthil Balaji case.
SC has been granting bail to accused in money laundering cases after reading down the stringent bail provisions of PMLA by ruling that delay in trial and long incarceration could be grounds for grant of bail. But till now, it had not specified the period beyond which a PMLA accused could not be kept in custody. The time-frame of one year will help bring uniformity for courts to deal with bail pleas.
Affidavit not vetted through proper channel, something ‘fishy’ in way it was filed, says ED
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan clarified the one-year period while hearing the bail plea of Arun Pati Tripathi, an accused in the Chhattisgarh excise case who was arrested by ED on Aug 8 last year. As he has spent only around five months in custody, the court expressed reservation in granting bail.
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora and advocate Mohit D Ram, appearing for the accused, pleaded that he had actually spent 18 months in jail as Enforcement Directorate (ED) had taken him in custody in Aug and before that, he was in jail for a predicate offence. However, the bench said it could not be considered for grant of bail and agreed to examine the issue on Feb 5.
The apex court’s verdict in the Senthil Balaji case had held that stringent provisions such as Section 45(1)(iii) of PMLA could not become a tool to incarcerate accused without trial for an unreasonably long time and it did not confer power on the state to detain an accused for a prolonged period.
The hearing witnessed an unexpected turn at the outset as additional solicitor general S V Raju, appearing for ED, told the bench that an affidavit filed by the agency in court was not vetted through the proper channel. He said there was something “fishy” in the way the affidavit was filed and asked the ED director to hold an inquiry.
The court expressed surprise that the agency could disown its own affidavit and questioned the role of the advocate-on-record through whom documents are filed in SC. However, the senior law officer clarified that the AoR filed what he was given by the department and the fault lay within the agency. The court thereafter asked ED’s AoR to appear before it.
Later, Raju said while the person handling filing work, being new to the job, may not have followed the procedure fully, the affidavit contained all valid arguments and grounds. The ASG and solicitor general Tushar Mehta gave a clean chit to the AoR.