Arrested for ₹2 crore fraud, typographical error gets bizman default bail

Mumbai: A city businessman, arrested for allegedly cheating investors for over ₹2 crore was recently granted default bail by the Bombay high court, all thanks to a typographical error

Mumbai: A city businessman, arrested for allegedly cheating investors for over ₹2 crore was recently granted default bail by the Bombay high court, all thanks to a typographical error.

typewriter and the letters that fly like birds (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

It turned out that the police failed to mention his name in the chargesheet filed within a stipulated period of 60 days which resulted in him getting a default bail.

The businessman Nandlal Singh Kesar Singh, the chairman of the Phenomenal Group was arrested on December 18, 2021, by Barshi police and was produced before a local magistrate the next day. On February 18, 2022, he applied to the Solapur sessions court for default bail, asserting that since chargesheet was not filed against him within 60 days, he was entitled to be released on default bail, as provided under section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The police opposed the plea by pointing out that a chargesheet was filed against Singh and two of his employees on February 17, the 60th day of his arrest and therefore he was not entitled to default bail. The sessions court accepted the submission and rejected his default bail plea, though inadvertently Singh’s name was not mentioned as an accused in the chargesheet and instead the name of another accused was mentioned twice.

The high court, however, refused to accept that the mistake of not naming Singh as accused in the chargesheet was an inadvertent one and that it should not be construed as a failure on part of the police to file the chargesheet in stipulated time.

HC said once the right to default bail is accrued to an accused, no ploy can be tolerated to defeat that right thereafter. “It has been judicially recognised that once the period of detention expires sans chargesheet and the accused manifests the intent to avail the right by making an application, no subterfuge to defeat the indefeasible right can be countenanced,” said the court.

“The factors like the bail application were not decided or subsequently chargesheet came to be filed (before deciding the bail plea) or a report seeking extension of the period of detention came to be filed and allowed, are of no significance,” the court added.

Singh had moved to the high court after his default bail plea was rejected twice by the Solapur sessions court. His first bail plea was rejected on February 18 – the 61st day of his arrest. His second plea, filed on February 25, was rejected by the sessions court in view of the fact that by then the police had applied for correcting the mistake – omission to name him in the chargesheet and instead naming another accused twice and the court had allowed the police to make appropriate correction in the chargesheet.

“Evidently, on the 61st day, when the applicant (Singh) sought to enforce his statutory right to (default) bail, there was no chargesheet against him,” said justice Jamadar while rejecting the claim of inadvertent mistake. “Rejection of the application at that moment (on February 18, before allowing correction in the chargesheet) by the learned Additional Sessions Judge appeared to be without justifiable reason.