SC agrees to hear Chandolia's plea against HC's stay on bail

The Supreme Court today agreed to examine the appeal filed by R K Chandolia, former private secretary of A Raja and an accused in the 2G scam case, challenging the stay granted by the Delhi High Court on his bail.

A bench of justices Altamas Kabir and S S Nijjar and J Chelameswar posted the matter for hearing at 2 pm in the mentioning list after counsel Sanjiv Sen mentioned the appeal before it.

Chandolia, who was out of Tihar Jail on December 1 after being granted bail, has challenged the high court's suo-motu decision to stay the grant of bail by the special court on the ground that the decision of stay was "unwarranted and erroneous".

The bench had on December 5 told Chandolia's counsel that it was not sure whether the appeal fell within the ambit of sphere of work allocated to it under the rules for business of the apex court.

The court had then asked the lawyer to mention the matter again today as the apex court registry, by that time, would find out whether the court could take up the matter for hearing or not.

Earlier, a bench of Justice V K Shali of the high court, had stayed the trial court order granting bail to Chandolia.

A day after Chandolia got out of Tihar after getting bail in the case, the high court took suo motu cognizance of news reports and said that the stay would be operative if he was not released from the prison.