A division bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna made these remarks, lamenting the Enforcement Directorate‘s practice of filing supplementary charge sheets in money laundering cases to defeat the accused’s right of getting default bail.
Justice Khanna verbally remarked that “this is just not done”. The bench added that the probe agency ought to ensure commencement of the trial once it files a charge sheet. “How you conduct an investigation is your prerogative. But you cannot say that you will keep filing successive charge sheets and keep the accused in jail without trial,” justice Khanna verbally remarked on the plea of an accused booked by ED in a case of illicit mining. The bench noted that Prem Prakash, the accused, has been behind bars for the past 18 months.
“The whole object of default bail is that you do not arrest until the investigation is complete. In some cases we will take it up and we are putting you to notice. The trial has to begin when you arrest an accused,” the bench added. It told ED’s counsel that “if you haven’t completed the investigation, then don’t arrest the person.”
Justice Khanna also referred to the deadline of filing charge sheets in some countries. “In some of the countries, the mandate to file a charge sheet is within 48 hours after the arrest.” The bench, however, acknowledged that given the constraints in our country, filing charge sheets on such short notice may not be possible. “Nevertheless, there has to be an outer limit. This is bothering us,” SC added.
ET BureauThe counsel for ED submitted that in certain cases the accused try to delay trial by seeking unnecessary documents only in a bid to delay the trial. Justice Khanna remarked that in cases where the accused are responsible for the delay, they need to be blamed. But the agency should not keep filing successive charge sheets to deny the default bail to accused who keep languishing in jail for months and years.
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