Coal block case: Court cancels bail, sends pvt firm director to custody

A Special Court (Special designate court for coal block matters) has cancelled the bail of a director of a private firm after noting that he has violated the fundamental condition of bail.

Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj in an order passed on Tuesday said that this court has no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the bail granted to the accused Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal deserves to be cancelled as he has violated the fundamental condition of bail.

The bail of accused Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal is therefore cancelled. He is taken into custody. Application filed by CBI for cancellation of bail is therefore disposed of as allowed, said the court in the order.

 

The court noted that the phone call by the accused to a witness telling him that people from AES USA wish to talk to him is an interference with the due course of administration.

Out of a large number of cases, where the witnesses are threatened or won over, only a small number of such instances come to the notice of the court. A large number of prosecutions fail due to hostile witnesses.

Once, a clear-cut instance of an attempt to approach the witness comes to the notice of the court, the court should not shy away from taking the strong step of cancelling the bail of such an accused. Only the tip of the iceberg comes to the notice of courts as only in very few cases, do the witnesses inform the court about the attempts by the accused to approach them. In such cases, no leniency is possible as it strikes at the roots of the criminal justice delivery system.

While deciding such applications, not only the hardship which the accused will undergo by losing his liberty is to be considered, but the hardship which the society as a whole will undergo if such instances are ignored or are let off merely by giving a warning or imposing fine is also to be taken into consideration by the Court.

The investigation agency CBI recently moves the court with the application of seeking cancellation of bail granted to accused Sanjeev Kumar Aggarwal.

On 30.05.2017, the court had taken cognizance of the offence under section 120-B/420 of IPC against M/s AES Chhattisgarh Energy Pvt. Ltd. and Sanjeey Kumar Agarwal, its Director. When the accused appeared before the court and applied for bail, the same was instantly granted. The conditions of bail simply were that he shall not leave India without prior permission of this court and he shall not tamper with the documents/prosecution evidence or approach the prosecution witnesses in any manner.

The accused has admitted having called up a witness when he landed at Delhi airport from Kolkata for appearing as a witness, in this case, the court noted.

However, the accused was defended by his lawyers and it cannot be submitted by the accused that he never realised that his contacting the witness may intimidate the witness because of his innocuous act, as noted by the court.

Last year, the Supreme Court decided to appoint two Special Courts to deal with and exclusively try the offences pertaining to coal block allocation matters.