The Supreme Court has granted bail to two men accused of money-laundering and cheating to secure government contracts worth ₹979.45 crore, saying “pre-trial detention cannot be permitted to degenerate into punishment without trial”.
The bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu stressed that both accused had spent over a year in jail, one of them was 72 years old, and the trial would take a long time to conclude.
Tens of thousands of Indians spend years in jail without trial or conviction, the reasons ranging from their inability to afford legal representation and court backlogs to stringent special laws.
Activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam remain imprisoned without trial for over six years under an anti-terror law in a 2020 Delhi riot conspiracy case. The apex court had been shocked last month to learn that a burglary accused in Bengal, whose trial is proceeding at a snail’s pace, had already spent eight-and-a-half years in jail.
“As repeatedly emphasised by this court, prolonged pre-trial detention cannot be permitted to degenerate into punishment without trial in derogation of an undertrial’s fundamental right to personal liberty and speedy trial guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution,” the bench said.
It said the records in the cheating case are “voluminous, involving 22 accused persons, three chargesheets, 124 cited prosecution witnesses, and 192 documents spread over 20,000 pages”.
It noted that “charges have not yet been framed, and the trial is yet to commence for several reasons”. Investigation into some of the co-accused is still continuing and several other co-accused are in hiding.
“We are also mindful that several co-accused... have been granted interim protection or bail,” the bench said.
“Having regard to the sheer volume of oral and documentary evidence proposed to be adduced, the trial as and when it commences is likely to take sufficient time to conclude in the near future.
“Viewed in the totality of the aforesaid circumstances, we are satisfied that further pretrial incarceration of the appellants is neither warranted nor necessary, and that any legitimate apprehension of the prosecution can be adequately safeguarded by imposing appropriate conditions.”
Accused Mahesh Chandra Joshi and Mukesh Pathak had challenged Rajasthan High Court’s dismissal of their bail pleas.
The prosecution alleges that between 2021 and 2023, Shri Ganpati Tubewell Company (owned by co-accused Mahesh Mittal) and Shree Shyam Tubewell Company (owned by co-accused Padam Chand Jain) had, in cahoots with officials in the Rajasthan public health engineering department, participated in 237 tenders on the strength of forged work-completion certificates and letters of acceptance.
The two firms together secured work orders relating to 104 tenders valued at ₹859.2 crore and 73 tenders valued at ₹120.25 crore, respectively.
The bench asked the trial court to impose bail conditions. It directed the accused to surrender their passports if they had not already done so, not leave the country without the trial court’s permission, and appear before the investigating officer whenever asked.
It said the observations in its order were not an expression of opinion on the merits of the case.