The Rouse Avenue Court on Tuesday granted interim bail to five accused who were not arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) during probe in connection with the Delhi Government Excise police case.
Special Judge MK Nagpal on Tuesday granted bail to two former Excise Department officials Kuldeep Singh and Narender Singh. The Court also granted bail to Gautam Mootha and Arun Pillai and businessman Sameer Mahendru. The Court granted bail to them on Rs 50,000 personal bail bond and one like amount surety.
Meanwhile, the Court also sought a response from CBI on their regular bail plea and fixed the matter for January 24, 2023. All the five accused were not arrested during the investigation, the court noted.
Two accused Vijay Nair and Abhishek Boinpally were already granted bail earlier by the same court. Recently the trial court while taking cognizance of the CBI chargesheet filed against a total of seven accused, had issued summons against all accused.
Sameer Mahendru, Vijay Nair and Abhishek Boinpally are to remain in Judicial custody as they were also arrested by the ED in an Excise Money Laundering case and their bail petition is pending before the trial court.
The CBI recently has recently filed a chargesheet against 7 accused persons and out of these, only the accused Vijay Nair and Abhishek Bonipally found to have been arrested. Bail granted to both of them is under challenge before HC. Chargesheet qua 5 other accused is filed without arrest, noted the court.
Recently, CBI challenged the trial court order granting bail to Vijay Nair and Abhishek Boinpally in Delhi High Court.
CBI's Petition stated that the trial court Judge has not only granted a concession of bail to the respondent accused in an extremely serious and wide-ranging economic offence but this discretion has been exercised at a very crucial stage of the investigation.
Investigation Agency submits that of the seven tests prescribed by the Supreme Court to test any discretionary order dealing with a bail has not been complied with in the present case. It is also submitted that the present case is a case of a conspiracy sought to be carried out in an extremely convoluted manner with a clear purpose of making an attempt that the investigation if any, does not reach the real culprits.
According to the CBI, it commenced an investigation and unearthed the conspiracy led by the present Applicant who was collecting money from private liquor wholesalers in lieu of getting favourable changes made in the Excise Policy of 2021.
During the course of the hearing of the present bail application, the Petitioner had shown its Case Diary to the trial court judge. Judge which shows a far graver offence as also the stage and interest of investigation which would be adversely affected by the release of the respondent on bail.
On November 14 2022 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) communications in-charge Vijay Nair and Hyderabad-based businessman Abhishek Boinpally were granted bail by the Rouse Avenue court in a Delhi excise policy case. However, Nair and Boinpally were not released from the Tihar as the Enforcement Directorate has taken them into granted custody in the same case of money laundering.
( With inputs from ANI )
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