Mumbai: The Bombay High Court recently directed a man, arrested by the CBI’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), be released from illegal judicial detention of over 60 days.
A Division Bench of Justices S.C. Dharmadhikari and Bharati Dangre was hearing a plea filed by Rajkumar Jain, which claimed that his son, Rohit, has been in illegal judicial custody, and should be released.
Rohit was arrested by the CBI EOW on September 9 and charged under IPC section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and section 120B (punishment for criminal conspiracy).
The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate had remanded Rohit in judicial custody till September 28, which was extended to October 12, then till November 11 and again to November 23. This exhausted the maximum permissible custody of 60 days as prescribed by the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Rohit had also applied for bail on November 20, which was rejected on the grounds that during the course of their investigation, the CBI had invoked IPC sections 465 (punishment for forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) and relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The advocate appearing for the Jains said Rohit had been kept in custody illegally, which is in clear violation of CrPC section 167 (procedure when investigation cannot be completed in 24 hours) and his fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. CBI counsel Hiten Venegavkar argued that as per additional charges, the period of filing the charge sheet is 90 days, and not 60.
The court held Rohit is being illegally detained and and directed that he Rohit be released.
