Chandigarh, October 18
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that accused are not entitled to anticipatory bail in a routine manner in economic offences, which were required to be considered as grave. The issue of granting bail in such matters was required to be based on nature of accusations, material collected by the investigating agency and other components like severity of punishment ultimate conviction may entail and attending circumstances to the accused.
The assertion by Justice Raj Mohan Singh came while dealing with the bail petitions filed by former minister Bharat Bhushan and others. The Bench asserted economic offences had deep-rooted conspiracies, involving huge loss of public funds. These were required to be viewed seriously and considered grave offences affecting the public exchequer and the country’s economy.
Justice Raj Mohan Singh said the grant of anticipatory bail to some extent interferes in the area of investigation. The court must be circumspect while exercising such power in economic offences.
The right to anticipatory bail was not absolute right and was not a part of Article 21 of the Constitution. The economic offences stood as a different class as they affected the society’s economic fabric.
Before parting with the case, Justice Raj Mohan Singh added there was no ground to grant concession of anticipatory bail in the case to Sandeep Bhatia, Jagroop Singh, Surinder Kumar and Anil Jain.
