Observing that “the right to speedy trial and the right to liberty are sacrosanct rights,” the Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the Delhi excise case.
A division bench comprising Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan granted bail to in both cases registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the said scandal. Ordering the release of Sisodia, who has been behind bars for over 17 months, the top court cautioned the trial and high courts against playing safe in matters of grant of bail.
The bench observed that “over a period of time, the trial courts and the high courts have forgotten a very wellsettled principle of law that bail is not to be withheld as a punishment.” The SC further noted that the trial has not even commenced in the instant case. “In the present case, in the ED matter as well as the CBI matter, 493 witnesses have been named. The case involves thousands of pages of documents and over a lakh pages of digitized documents. It is thus clear that there is not even the remotest possibility of the trial being concluded in the near future,” the judgment reads. Elaborating, the bench added “in our view, keeping the appellant (Sisodia) behind the bars for an unlimited period of time in the hope of speedy completion of trial would deprive his fundamental right to liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution.” The judgment further reads “as observed time and again, the prolonged incarceration before being pronounced guilty of an offense should not be permitted to become punishment without trial.” The top court further recorded that the instant case “largely depends on documentary evidence which is already seized by the prosecution.” As such, the bench added, “there is no possibility of tampering with the evidence.”The bench disagreed with the trial court’s finding that it was Sisodia who was attempting to delay the commencement of the trial in the case. “In that view of the matter, we find that the finding of the learned trial judge that it is the appellant (Sisodia) who is responsible for delaying the trial is not supported by the record,” the judgment reads.