Calcutta High Court Again Grants Bail To Accused After Fresh Consideration On Supreme Court Directions, Says 'Human Liberty Is Most Valuable'

The division bench of Justice I. P. Mukerji and Justice Biswaroop Chowdhury observed:

“Human liberty is most valuable to every civilized human being. Liberty includes the right and opportunity to free movement without unreasonable restrictions, the freedom to talk, to be talked to, to write, to be written to, to express views, be influenced by expression of views, to work, eat, rest, play, recreate and do activities becoming of a civilized human being, without interference from anybody or unreasonable interference from any state authority.”

It was the case of the prosecution that an association of ‘fraudulent’ persons was formed around 2007 which consisted of one Dilip Chand Kankaria, his wife Sudha Kankaria, their relative Surendra Bengani and the members of the Surana family which included the petitioner Prabha Surana and her husband Shanti Kumar Surana.

It was alleged that several crores of rupees were received from the public by Kankaria and part of it was routed to the account of the petitioner and the ultimate purpose was to misappropriate the fund collected. A brochure by Commercial Paradise Pvt. Ltd. inviting the public to make investment was allegedly issued and published in 2011 to deceive them to make investment.

According to the prosecution, the bank statements obtained by it showed that several hundreds of crores of rupees interchanged hands between the petitioner and Dilip Chand Kankaria between 2007 and 2013. It was further alleged that after his death, this operation was handled by his wife, Sudha whose bank account would also reflect these transactions from 2014 till 2020.

A complaint petition before the Chief Judicial Magistrate under Section 156(3) of the CrPC was lodged by the complainant which was treated as a FIR. The petitioner was charged under Section 3 of the West Bengal Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishments Act, 2013 for an offence which was allegedly committed in 2011. The investigation was completed on July 21, 2022 and the charge sheet was filed before the Special Judge.

The High Court vide its order dated January 10, 2023 granted bail to the petitioner. However, being aggrieved by the bail order, the State of West Bengal filed a SLP before the Supreme Court. The Apex Court on March 3 set aside the order granting bail to the accused passed by the High Court and remanded back the matter.

In the latest order, the high court noted that the accusation against the petitioner is of an economic offence which relates to alleged misappropriation of crores of money collected from the public from 2011 onwards. It was further noted by the court that the person aggrieved by this alleged misappropriation did not file a complaint till 10 years later in 2020.

“By 2020 the petitioner would have destroyed whatever evidence it wanted to destroy to absolve her of the crime. If she did not, in my opinion, there is little chance of its destruction now. The investigating agency has had a decade to make itself aware of the crime and to take steps for prosecution. It did not. Prosecution started only after the de-facto complainant made an application before the criminal court. On the basis of this, FIR was registered. Had the complaint been made contemporaneously, it would have carried much more weight than having been made,” said the court.

The court further noted that after filing of the criminal complaint, investigation was quickly carried out by the investigating agency by seizure of the documents, tracking of all bank accounts, their attachment and so on and investigation was closed and charge sheet submitted. It was further pointed out by the Court that if for more than 12 years, the accused has not absconded, there is little reason to believe pending trial the accused would abscond.

“She has surrendered her passport with the investigating agency. Furthermore, there is little scope of recovery of more evidence to convict the accused,” the court said.

The court noted that the prosecution has not even submitted that a supplementary charge sheet is being made ready. It was further observed by the court that just a mere submission that more investigation is required, is not enough unless some proof is laid before the court that there are some materials on which further charges can be framed and that the accused is in a position to tamper with that evidence or otherwise interfere with the trial.

It was observed by the Court that one co-accused has been released on bail. Thus, the Court directed that the petitioner shall be released on bail upon furnishing a bond of Rs.10,000/- with two sureties each of like amount, one of whom must be local subject to other conditions.

Case Title: Prabha Surana v. The State of West Bengal

Coram: Justice I. P. Mukerji and Justice Biswaroop Chowdhury

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