The Calcutta High Court recently granted bail to a woman facing trial in a multi-crore financial scam, saying bail is the rule and jail is the exception.
“Human liberty is sacrosanct, which is invaluable for a human being in any civilized society… When it is said that the gravity of offence would be a factor in determining whether bail is to be granted, it does not mean that the court has to adjudicate on the elements of the crime or the charges to find out its nature, extent and depth,” the Division Bench of Justices Biswaroop Chowdhury and IP Mukerji said.
“On the basis of the charges framed, the court is only required to ascertain the nature of the crime. If the whole of the charges in the chargesheet were proved, what would be the magnitude of the crime and the sentence the accused was likely to suffer,” the court added.
The bench was hearing a criminal case resulting from a money dispute between two parties.
In 2007, the petitioner and her husband had allegedly set up an association of fraudulent individuals. The petitioner, a senior member of the society and member of a respectable business family, had represented that if people deposited money through Kankaria and the Surana group, they would obtain big returns.
The petitioner was accused of stealing crores of rupees gathered from the general public beginning 2011. The victim of the alleged misappropriation did not register a complaint until 2020.
The petitioner had been in custody for 135 days when she filed a bail application before the High Court on January 10, 2023. On the same day, a co-accused had been granted bail.
On October 31, 2022, the Supreme Court denied a special leave petition filed by the de-facto complainant challenging the bail order. The High Court, therefore, granted bail to the petitioner based on these circumstances.
As a consequence of the bail order, the state filed another special leave petition with the Supreme Court, which was granted. On March 2023, the Supreme Court referred the matter to the High Court after setting aside the bail order.
“Human liberty is most valuable to every civilized human being. Liberty includes the right and opportunity to free movement without unreasonable restrictions, the freedom to talk, to be talked to, to write, to be written to, to express views, be influenced by expression of views, to work, eat, rest, play, recreate and do activities becoming of a civilized human being, without interference from anybody or unreasonable interference from any state authority,” the High Court said.
The court added that if the accused had not absconded for more than 12 years, there is little reason to believe that she may do so in the pending trial. “She has surrendered her passport with the investigating agency. Furthermore, there is little scope of recovery of more evidence to convict the accused.”
Accordingly, the court directed that the petitioner shall be released on bail upon furnishing a bond of Rs 10,000 with two sureties.
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