Ashok Jains Bail Plea Dismissed Rejected Headline In 32pt In 3

The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an anticipatory bail plea of media baron Ashok Kumar Jain in a foreign exchange regulation act (Fera) violation case.

This is not a fit case for granting anticipatory bail to the accused and the sessions court as well as the high court have rightly declined the pre-arrest bail, a three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice M K Mukherjee, said.

The court also quashed a Delhi High Court order making it conditional for the enforcement directorate to seek approval of a medical board of cardiologists of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences before arresting and custodially interrogating Jain in the case.

 

In our view, such anticipatory stipulations are interference with the efficient exercise of statutory functions of the ED when dealing with economic offences. Hence the single judge of the high court ought not to have imposed such conditions on the ED, a three-judge bench consisting of Justice Mukherjee, Justice S P Kurdurkar and Justice K T Thomas said in their judgement.

The court allowed an appeal by the ED against the high court order and restored a trial court verdict rejecting Jains application for anticipatory bail.

In another decision, the three-judge bench accepted the EDS plea for retaining certain documents it had allegedly seized from the residential premises of Jain on January 4, 1997 under section 41 of Fera and directed that the enforcement directorate could keep the material for another six months.

The judges, however, made it clear that the ED shall abide by this extended time and that no further extension would be permitted except with the leave of the court.

The ED had pleaded that interrogation of the respondent businessman would become completely futile if it could not use the seized documents.

ED contended before the court that it had issued summons to the accused to appear for interrogation after initiating a probe into alleged Fera violations involving millions of dollars.

The directorate submitted that on January 5, 1997 the accused left India and though summons were repeated many times, he did not respond to any one of them. Instead, Jain, the ED submitted moved the sessions court for anticipatory bail on the ground that his health had deteriorated.

The sessions court, however, rejected his application and the respondent-accused moved the high court challenging this order.

A single judge of the high court while holding that Jain could be arrested and interrogated, however, passed conditions that such arrest be subject to the opinion of cardiologists of AIIMS. The high court had held that if the ED considered custodial interrogation necessary it should approach the AIIMS director to constitute a board of cardiologists to examine the respondent and if the board reaches the conclusion that interrogation was not feasible it will be open to the ED officials to interrogate him under the care of doctors.

The only question before the Supreme Court was whether the high court conditions were correct or not, the bench said.

The judges said it had not been contended by anyone that the respondent was immune to arrest or even interrogation simply on account of his physical condition.

Further the ED cannot overlook the delicate health condition of an accused and will have to safeguard his health while he is in their custody, they said.

But to say that interrogation should be subject to the opinion of cardiologists of AIIMS and that ED officials should approach the director would in our opinion considerably impair the efficient functioning of the ED under Fera , the judges said.

The court said the ED officials cannot be nailed to fixed modalities stipulated by the court for conduct of interrogations. Courts could interfere only when such authorities fail to adopt necessary measures to safeguard the health of the accused and we are not in favour of stipulating in advance modalities to be followed by the ED.