Mumbai: The special ACB court granted bail to Vishal Sawant, interpreter working at the Small Causes court, Dhobi Talao, after the Anti Corruption bureau failed to submit chargesheet within stipulated period of 60 days against him.
As per the prosecution case, Sawant was caught accepting a bribe of Rs 25 lakhs from a litigant to get favorable order on September 10. Sawant was caught red handed accepting bribe a which the amount of bribe of Rs 10,00,000/- and Rs 15,00,000/- was the dummy currency notes which was found in the possession of the applicant/accused.
Besides, the officer during the investigation had found that Sawant was involved in more than 10 such instances have been traced where cases have been disposed off. However, the chargesheet is yet to be submitted.
The Investigating officer had to submit the chargesheet in the case within a stipulated period of 60 days but since the officer failed, Sawant moved for default bail.
In its explanation, the officer has claimed that they have written to the concern judicial officer on November 14, where Sawant was on duty for consent to prosecute Sawant. However, they have not yet received any reply and as soon as the same is received, the prosecution would submit the chargesheet before the court.
With this the court noted that, "charge-sheet in this crime is not filed on the date of application i.e. on December 9 and also up-till today no charge-sheet is filed in this crime. According to them, sanction to lodge prosecution against the accused is yet to be received by ACB Office from Competent Authority."
"So his statutory right for indefeasible bail shall not be defeated till the charge-sheet is submitted. So after expiry of stipulated period as provided under the BNSS, 2023 the applicant is entitled to get released on bail on account of default on the part of investigating agency in completing the investigation and filing the charge-sheet with stipulated period of 60 days, for the offence in question. As such, applicant is entitled for default bail," the court said while granting bail to Sawant.
The court had previously refused to grant bail to Sawant and rejected his plea on September 18, observing that, "the integrity of Judicial Officer is at stake at hand of mis-criminates at the hand of Clerk in the Court, where the entire judicial administrative machinery is working and depend upon them. Use of such type of tactics by the Court administrative staff will raise doubt over the entire judicial system which will looked under eyes of suspicious by the public at large."
