High Court · 2012

K.Srinivas confirmed in their statements under Section 164 Cr.P.C. that as per the instructions of A.6, they used to hand over the above said excess cash to A.7 N.Sunil Reddy who used to come to their office to collect the said excess amount. According to the prosecution, end destination of the above amount collected by A.7 is being pursued.

4. The case was registered by C.B.I., Hyderabad in pursuance of order dated 10.08.2011 of Division Bench of this Court in a public interest litigation by way of a letter addressed by one P.Sankara Rao, which letter was taken up as W.P.No.29358 of 2010. The case was registered for the offences punishable under Sections 120-B, 420, 409, 477-A IPC and Section 13(2)/13(1)(c) and (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

5. It is pointed out by the petitioner’s Senior counsel that even as per prosecution allegations, the unaccounted amount in respect of which A-6 had wrongful gain was Rs.96,01,75,000/-, out of which 26% share of A.P.I.I.C or Government of Andhra Pradesh comes to Rs.24,96,45,500/- , to which extent the Government suffered wrongful loss. Gravity of this case has to be assessed with reference to the above wrongful loss of Rs.24,96,45,500/- said to have been suffered by the Government of Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, it is contended that the petitioner is not liable to be in judicial custody for this length of time from 03.11.2011 in spite of the entire investigation being completed by C.B.I. It is further the charge sheet as well as supplementary charge sheet, C.B.I alleged as if some more part of the investigation is pending and that the Court cannot expect C.B.I to make eternal investigation in this case. On the other hand, the Special Public Prosecutor urged that though almost entire investigation in so far as the named accused in both the charge sheets is completed, end use of the embezzled amount is to be traced. According to the prosecution, A-7 was the conduit of the siphoned money and that his laptop is being analyzed for locating destination of the said amount from A-7. A-7 was arrested in this case on 24.01.2012.

6. Though meticulous examination of evidence collected by the investigation agency and its sufficiency need not be considered while considering an application for bail, over all scrutiny of the prosecution case may be relevant. A-14/Tummala Ranga Rao who is Director of A-5/Stylish Holmes made a clean disclosure statement under Section 164 Cr.P.C before Magistrate as to how he was involved in this affair by A-6 who happened to be his friend from their college days. A-14 is not arrested by C.B.I. He is attending the Court whenever the matter is posted. Similarly, statements under Section 164 Cr.P.C were recorded from several others like Partha Saradhi, Srinivas etc., Investigating agency apprehends that in case A-6 is granted bail and is out of judicial custody, then there is every likelihood of he exercising influence on the said witnesses because of his past close association with them and it would result in failure to produce collected evidence in proper shape during trial before the trial Court.

7. In State of Maharashtra V. Dhanendra Shriram Bhurle [1] the Supreme Court reiterated the following criteria for grant of bail, which were laid down in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar V. Rajesh Ranjan Alias Pappu Yadav [2] : “(a) The nature of accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence. (b) Reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant. (c) Prima facie satisfaction of the Court in support of the charge.”

8. The petitioner’s senior counsel placing reliance on Laloo Prasad Alias Laloo Prasad Yadav V. State of Jharkhand and Dr.Jagannath Mishra V. C.B.I of the [3] [4] Supreme Court contended that the Supreme Court while considering bail applications in fodder scam case in the State of Bihar involving Hundred of Crores of Rupees took the view that all accused persons therein whose period of judicial custody exceeded six months are entitled for bail. It is further pointed out that after considering two criteria for bail laid in Gurucharan Singh V. State (Delhi Admn.) [5] the Supreme Court and also taking note of Laloo Prasad (3 supra), the Supreme Court in Sanjay Chandra V. Central Bureau of Investigation [6] granted bail to the accused in 2G scam case by observing as follows: “46. We are conscious of the fact that the accused are charged with economic offences of huge magnitude. We are also conscious of the fact that the offences alleged, if proved, may jeopardize the economy of the country. At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the investigating agency has already completed investigation and the charge-sheet is already filed before the Special Judge, CBI, New Delhi. Therefore, their presence in the custody may not be necessary for further investigation. We are of the view that the appellants are entitled to the grant of bail pending trial on stringent conditions in order to ally the apprehension expressed by CBI”.

9. The Special Public Prosecutor urged that it is not intention of C.B.I to see that the accused/petitioner is kept in jail eternally and that since further investigation towards end use of the amount involved in this case is in progress, it may not be proper stage for granting bail to the petitioner who is the brain behind the entire episode in this case.

10. This Court previously rejected bail plea of the petitioner/A-6 in Criminal Petition No.2380 of 2012 by order dated 25.03.2012, having regard to key role played by the petitioner and witnesses coming forward to give statements in this case only after the petitioner was arrested. It is contended for the petitioner that there are as many as 343 witnesses cited in the charge sheet and supplementary charge sheet and that even if trial of the case were to be taken up at an early date and in an expeditious manner, it takes long time for the prosecution to complete their evidence and till then the petitioner cannot be incarcerated in judicial custody.

11. After having considered allegations against the petitioner/A-6 and prima facie evidence collected by the investigating agency against him, it cannot be said that there is no prima facie case for the prosecution against the petitioner/ A-6. No doubt, further investigation cannot go on eternally and the petitioner cannot suffer incarceration in judicial custody pending prolonged trial. Keeping all the factors in mind, this Court is of the opinion that this is not appropriate to grant bail the petitioner; and reasonable time is to be allowed to C.B.I to unearth and locate end use of the amounts collected over and above Rs.5,000/- per square yard from Villa plot purchasers. It may not be out of context to refer the fact that the petitioner/A-6 was permitted to be examined while in judicial custody by the Enforcement Directorate (E.D) on the allegations touching Money Laundering Act and that such notices were permitted to be served on the petitioner/A-6 by the Principal Special Court for C.B.I. Cases, Hyderabad on the petitioner by the officers of Enforcement Directorate at the prison where the petitioner is now lodged.

12. In the result, the petition is dismissed. _____________________________ SAMUDRALA GOVINDARAJULU,J Dt.25th June, 2012 PNV/ksh [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] (2009)11 Supreme Court Cases 541 (2004) 7 Supreme Court Cases 528 (2002)9 Supreme Court Cases 372 (1998)9 Supreme Court Cases 611 (1978) 1 Supreme Court Cases 118 (2012) 1 Supreme Court Cases 40