Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Wednesday issued notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a bail plea by dismissed cop Sachin Waze, who has been in jail since March 2022 in an alleged corruption case linked to former state home minister Anil Deshmukh and others. Waze had sent the bail petition hand written from the Taloja central prison.
His counsel Aabad Ponda pointed to the court that Waze had turned approver in the case and is the only one languishing in jail, whereas other accused are out on bail. He is an approver so there is no chargesheet against him, who is never going to get convicted and go to jail and who is a witness. While everyone else in the case has been granted bail so the trial will go on for 20 years, his advocate argued.
Ponda said that it is “completely unfair” for a person to stay behind bars in Section 306(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The section deals with granting pardon to an accused, who decides to turn approver and support the prosecution during trial. He pointed out that no chargesheet was filed against him and that he has been in jail for over two years now.
“He is an approver so there is no chargesheet against him, who is never going to get convicted and go to jail and who is a witness. While everyone else in the case has been granted bail so the trial will go on for 20 years,” Ponda argued. Further, he said the plea also invokes Article 21 of the Constitution of India which refers to protection of life and liberty.
A vacation bench of Justices Nitin Borakar and Somasekhar Sundaresan issued notice to the CBI and kept the plea for hearing on June 14. Waze approached the HC after the special CBI court rejected his bail plea on two occasions.
In 2001, Waze, then an Assistant Police Inspector of Mumbai police was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in relation to the bomb scare at the Ambani house, Antilia and businessman Mansukh Hiran death case.
The CBI and ED registered cases against Anil Desbmukh, his personal secreatry and personal assistants and others for corruption and money laundering respectively. The agencies then arrested Deshmukh, Waze and others.
Waze then made an application seeking to turn approver in the case which was accepted by both the agencies. He was granted bail in the ED case but his bail was rejected in the CBI case.
While rejecting his plea, the CBI court said: “… an approver who has been granted pardon has to be detained till the termination of trial and cannot be granted bail before that. The object, purpose and intention behind the provision is not to punish him for having agreed to give evidence for the State, but to protect him from the wrath of the co-accused since he has chosen to expose their deeds and has thrown himself open to attack by the co-accused.”
