The Supreme Court has relaxed a bail condition to deposit Rs 60 lakh for a man, who remained in jail for about nearly seven years for his inability to pay the cash security, despite having got the relief six years ago in a cheating and forgery case.
A bench of Justices Vineet Saran and B R Gavai allowed a petition filed by S K Mumtaz alias Sumtaz against such a condition imposed by Orissa High Court's order of July 16, 2015.
The court noted that the petitioner has undergone nearly seven years imprisonment as undertrial because he has not been able to give the cash security of Rs 60 lakh, following his arrest on June 23, 2014.
The petitioner claimed he was an indigent person and was just a watchman of the company which presented him as one of the directors. He challenged validity of the High Court's order of October 21, 2020, refusing to relax the condition of depositing such a huge amount of cash deposit.
The Odisha police, for its part, opposed the plea saying the petitioner along with Dilip Kumar Bala, and Ashok Kumar Ghadei of Darubrahma Builders Pvt Ltd cheated complainant Subhra Mohanty of Rs four crores by forging documents and executing sale deeds in respect of properties belonging to others. The woman wanted to buy about 100 acres of land in Cuttack to establish an NGO.
The police further said this was a case with maximum sentence of life imprisonment, and the petitioner may flee if released on bail. It also pointed out another accused Bala who got interim bail for 20 days in 2017 did not surrender and has continued to abscond till date.
(Published 29 May 2021, 13:35 IST)
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