Crucial for Courts to be conscious of accused’s right to speedy trial, rather than waking up too late and lament that such right is defeated: Delhi HC

Delhi High Court: In a petition filed by the petitioner (‘accused’) under Section 483 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (‘BNSS’), seeking regular bail in FIR registered under Sections 406¹/420²/467³/468⁴/471⁵/120-B⁶/34⁷ of the Penal Code, 1860, Anup Jairam Bhambhani, J., stated that it was crucial for a Court to recognise and be conscious of the right of an accused to speedy trial and to prevent that right from being defeated, rather than wake-up much too late and lament that such right was defeated. Thus, considering the allegations in the subject FIR insofar as they relate to the accused, this Court accordingly persuaded to admit the accused to regular bail, pending trial, subject to the certain conditions.

Background

In the present case, there was an alleged criminal conspiracy between a former employee of the Customs Department; co-accused who was a data entry operator with the Customs Department; and a co-accused who was employed as Senior Manager at the Punjab National Bank. The allegation was that the criminal conspiracy was hatched with the intention of cheating the Customs Department of unclaimed and unaccounted amounts lying deposited in their bank accounts towards refund of customs duty to importers.

The modus operandi alleged to have been employed by the accused persons was to forge various official documents, including scrolls, forwarding letters and cheques, using the official stamps and signatures of customs officials. It was alleged that these forged documents would in-turn be used to show bogus entities as beneficiaries who were eligible for customs duty refund, to misappropriate government funds.

The accused submitted that he was neither the key conspirator nor did he play a central role in the forgery or cheating in furtherance of the conspiracy. It was submitted that, at the most, the accused’s role was limited to being a conduit who merely facilitated the routing and re-routing of funds on the instructions of the main conspirator and co-accused, after the acts of forgery and/or cheating had already been committed by the other co-accused persons.

Analysis, Law, and Decision

The Court observed that based on the submissions, the role against the accused was that he acted as a conduit for the other accused persons to channel and siphon-off funds lying unclaimed with the Customs Department, which monies were routed through the certain bank accounts. There was no allegation that the accused himself was involved in forging any scroll or cheque or other document relating to the Customs Department.

Further, the Court observed that there was also no material on record to prima-facie show that the accused was aware either of the ‘nature’ of the money that was being routed through the bank accounts or of the scale or quantum of the offences allegedly committed by the other accused persons.

The Court stated that the accused’s nominal roll showed that he had already suffered judicial custody for about thirteen months. However, regardless of the maximum punishment prescribed for the offences alleged against the accused, the court must never lose sight of the fact that, as of now, the accused was only an accused pending trial and had not been held guilty for any offences as of date.

The Court stated that it was crucial for a Court to recognise and be conscious of the right of an accused to speedy trial and to prevent that right from being defeated, rather than wake-up much too late and lament that such right was defeated. In the present case, the charge-sheet comprising about 10,000 pages was filed over 1 year ago citing 49 prosecution witnesses, but charges were yet to be framed. Therefore, it was obvious that trial would take a long time to conclude. However, the accused had already suffered more than one year of judicial custody and was exposed to ‘prisonisation’ and there appeared to be no cogent basis to satisfy the test of ‘necessity’ as discussed above for his continued detention.

Thus, considering the allegations in the subject FIR insofar as they relate to the accused, the Court persuaded to admit the accused to regular bail, pending trial, subject to the certain conditions. The Court stated that the accused should furnish a personal bond of Rs. 5,00,000 with two sureties in the like amount from family members, subject to the satisfaction of the Trial Court. The accused should furnish to the Investigating Officer, a cell-phone number on which the accused might be contacted at any time and should ensure that the number was always kept active and switched-on.

The Court further directed that if the accused had a passport, he should surrender the same to the Trial Court and should not travel out of the country without prior permission. The accused should not contact, nor visit, nor offer any inducement, threat or promise to any of the prosecution witnesses or other persons acquainted with the facts of case. The accused should not tamper with evidence nor otherwise indulge in any act or omission that was unlawful or that would prejudice the proceedings in the pending trial.

[Amit Agrawal v. State (NCT of Delhi), Bail Appln., 4475 of 2024, decided on 1-5-2025]

Advocates who appeared in this case:

For the Petitioner: Tanveer Ahmed Mir, Senior Advocate with Ariana D. Ahluwalia, Advocate.

For the Respondents: Tarang Srivastva, APP for the State; Inspector Kuldeep Bhoriya, EoW; Satish Aggarwala, Senior Standing Counsel with Gagan Vaswani, Advocate for Customs.

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