Supreme Court: Prolonged incarceration without conviction is unjust

The Supreme Court of India granted bail to BRS leader K Kavitha in connection with the Delhi excise policy scam cases underlining that lengthy imprisonment without a conviction is equivalent to punishment without trial The court emphasised that the fundamental right to liberty is superior to the constraints imposed by antimoney laundering legislation reported PTIKavitha 46 had been detained after being arrested by the Enforcement Directorate ED on March 15 2024 in a money laundering case On April 11 2024 the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI arrested her in connection with a corruption investigationAccording to the report on Tuesday a bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan granted her bail raising concerns about the fairness of the central investigating agencies conduct notably their approach to identifying accused individualsIn a 13page decision Justice Gavai restated the longstanding legal tenet that bail is the rule and refusal is the exception Referring to previous decisions including that of Manish Sisodia a former Delhi deputy chief minister and coaccused the court ruled The prolonged incarceration before being pronounced guilty of an offence should not be permitted to become punishment without trialWe had further observed that the fundamental right of liberty provided under Article 21 of the Constitution is superior to the statutory restrictions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act the judgement said per PTI reportThe court stated that the CBI and ED investigations were concluded and that Kavithas ongoing custody was unnecessary The bench also faulted the Delhi High Courts previous decision to deny Kavitha bail under Section 451 of the PMLA which grants women preferential treatment the news agency report readThe Supreme Court noted that the High Court misread this section concluding that it only applied to vulnerable womenProviso to Section 451 of the PMLA states Provided that a person who is under the age of sixteen years or is a woman or is sick or infirm or is accused either on his own or along with other coaccused of moneylaundering a sum of less than one crore rupees may be released on bail if the special court so directsThe court in their judgement per PTI report stated A perusal of theproviso would thus reveal that the proviso permits certain category of accused including women to be released on bail without the twin requirement under Section 45 of the PMLA to be satisfied However when a statute specifically provides a special treatment for a certain category of accused while denying such a benefit the court will be required to give specific reasons as to why such a benefit is to be deniedJustice Gavai further noted The learned Single Judge thereafter proceeds to observe that the present appellant cannot be equated to a vulnerable womanWe find that the learned Single Judge erroneously observed that the proviso to Section 451 of the PMLA is applicable only to a vulnerable womanThe verdict added We therefore find that the learned Single Judge of the High Court has totally misdirected herself while denying the benefit of the proviso to Section 451 of the PMLAKavitha the daughter of former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has been accused of belonging to the South Group a cartel that allegedly paid Rs 100 crore in kickbacks to Delhis ruling AAP in exchange for liquor licenses She has refuted all claims The Supreme Court ordered her release on bail with restrictions including the surrender of her passport and a Rs 10 lakh bond in each case The judge also ordered her to cooperate during the trial and refrain from tampering with evidence or influencing witnesses the PTI report stated