Liquor Policy: Delhi High Court Upholds Trial Court Order Rejecting Arun Pillai's Plea Against Commencement Of Arguments On Charge

The Delhi High Court on Friday upheld a trial court order rejecting the application moved by Hyderabad businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, accused in the alleged excise policy scam, against commencement of arguments on charge till conclusion of probe by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma observed that the impugned order passed on March 22 did not suffer from any infirmity and that the Trial Court had already taken note of Pillai's grievance.

“…the learned Trial Court in all fairness has already mentioned in its order that though 16 accused persons have already been chargesheeted and hearing arguments on charge will take considerable time, in case any further supplementary chargesheet is filed qua any other accused person, the hearing on arguments on charge may then be halted and copies of such chargesheet and relied upon documents be supplied to all the accused persons, and the present accused will also get an opportunity to address his arguments with respect to the new material evidence brought on record,” the court said.

It was Pillai's case that the investigation in the case was ongoing and had not been concluded by CBI even after a lapse of more than 15 months. He contended that the impugned order was arbitrary, unfair, unsustainable and violative of his fundamental and legal rights.

He further contended that the investigation was still ongoing on several aspects of alleged criminal conspiracy and it was possible that CBI may add additional accused persons after further investigation.

He prayed that the Trial Court be directed to defer the arguments on charge till further investigation was completed and that the documents relied upon by CBI qua BRS leader K Kavitha were supplied to him as per Section 207 of Cr.P.C, as he is alleged to have been linked with her.

The court noted that one of the main allegations against Pillai was that he was acting on behalf of K. Kavitha and communicating with other co-accused persons including Vijay Nair, and that he had received 65% of the profits out of total profits earned by M/s Indo Sprits.

It said that even though chargesheet was filed against Pillai, the same was yet to be filed qua K Kavitha and since both of them were allegedly in close conspiracy with each other, it will be important for Pillai to peruse the contents, allegations and material collected by prosecution against K. Kavitha, before he addresses arguments on charge.

Accordingly, the court issued the following directions:

- Therefore, it is now ordered that once the CBI files the said supplementary chargesheet before the learned Trial Court, on the first day of hearing itself, the I.O. will ensure that hard copies of the said chargesheet as well as the digitized copies of the same are provided to the accused persons before the learned Trial Court, to save time of pre-trial proceedings,” the court said.

- The accused persons may go through the said copies and inform the I.O. about any deficiency in the hard copies and digitized copies within two days.

- There should not be any unnecessary delay in scrutiny of the documents, by the accused persons also, to ensure speedy trial.

- Many of the accused persons are in judicial custody and therefore, it will be in their interest also that long dates or adjournments are not asked for, for the purpose of scrutiny of documents.

- The learned Trial Court is requested that the arguments on charge be heard immediately thereafter keeping in view the above timeline, and block dates be given to each accused for arguments on charge.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. Nitesh Rana, Mr. Anuj Tiwari, Mr. Kaushal Kait, Mr. Deepak Nagar, Mr. Nikhil Kohli, Ms. Soumya Kumar & Ms. Monika, Advocates

Counsel for Respondent: Mr. D.P. Singh, SPP with Mr.Manu Mishra, Ms. Shreya Dutt, Mr. Imaan Khera, Advocates with ASP Rajiv Kumar

Title: ARUN RAMCHANDRAN PILLAI v. CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 698

Click here to read order