BENGALURU: A special court in the city dismissed the anticipatory bail petitions filed by Nekkanti Nagaraj, B Ramesh, Edara Rudrayya and B Vijaya Kumar Gowda, accused in the case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged scam in the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation, on the ground that they have not justified the apprehension of their arrest.
Judge Santhosh Gajanan Bhat, Special Court judge for the trial of cases against sitting and former MLAs/MPs, dismissed the anticipatory bail petitions.
Citing the judgment of the apex court in the Tarsem Lal versus ED case, the special court said the accused could not be taken into custody at the stage of post-cognisance under Section 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The apex court clarified that if ED wants custody of the accused, who appear after summons were served for conducting further investigation in the same offence, the ED will have to seek custody by applying to the special court which is required to pass a reasoning order on the said application. In the wake of this, the accused can only be remanded to custody on the application filed by ED with reasons stating that their custodial interrogation is required, the special court said.
Senior counsel Hasmath Pasha vehemently argued that the filing of a chargesheet and order of summons being issued by the court by itself would justify the apprehension of arrest. Time and again, the apex court has held that mere apprehension of arrest itself is sufficient to file necessary anticipatory bail, he argued.
However, Special Public Prosecutor P Prasanna Kumar refuted the submissions but said there are strong prima facie materials available in this case against the petitioners. The ED’s complaint indicated that the petitioners had assisted the former minister for Scheduled Tribe Affairs B Nagendra, accused No.1, who was overseeing the functioning of the corporation.