TMI Blog2015 (2) TMI 1397X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... against the Appellant has serious adverse impact on the fabric of the society. The offence is of high magnitude indicating illegal admission to large number of undeserving candidates to the medical courses by corrupt means. Apart from showing depravity of character and generation of black money, the offence has the potential of undermining the trust of the people in the integrity of medical profession itself. If undeserving candidates are admitted to medical courses by corrupt means, not only the society will be deprived of the best brains treating the patients, the patients will be faced with undeserving and corrupt persons treating them in whom they will find it difficult to repose faith. In these circumstances, when the allegations are supported by material on record and there is a potential of trial being adversely influenced by grant of bail, seriously jeopardising the interest of justice, there are no ground to interfere with the view taken by the trial Court and the High Court in declining bail. It is certainly a matter of serious concern that the Appellant has been in custody for about one year and there is no prospect of immediate trial. When a person is kept in custody ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... vate Medical Colleges in the State of M.P. As per the material collected during investigation, in pursuance of conspiracy, the Appellant Dr. Vinod Bhandari, who is the Managing Director of Shri Aurbindo Institute of Medical Sciences, Indore, received money from the candidates through co-accused Pradeep Raghuvanshi who was working in Bhandari Hospital Research Centre, Indore as General Manager and who was also looking after the admissions and management work of Shri Aurbindo Institute of Medical Sciences, Indore, for arranging the undeserving candidates to pass through the MBBS Entrance Examination by unfair means. He gave part of the money to Nitin Mohindra, Senior Systems Analyst in Vyapam, who was the custodian of the model answer key, along with Dr. Pankaj Trivedi, Controller of Vyapam. During investigation, disclosure statement was made by Pradeep Raghuvanshi which led to the recovery of money and documents. The candidates, their guardians, some officers of the Vyapam and middlemen were found to be involved in the scam. It appears that there are in all 516 accused out of which 329 persons have been arrested and 187 are due to be arrested. Substantial investigation has been co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ealth. 5. The Division Bench of the High Court, in its Order, referred to the supplementary challan filed against the Appellant on 24th April, 2014, indicating the following material: Offence of the accused: The accused Dr. Vinod Bhandari has been the Managing Director of S.A.I.M.S., Indore and prior to the P.M.T. Examination 2012 he had in collusion with Nitin Mohindra, Senior System Analyst of Vyapam, for getting some of his candidates passed in the P.M.T. Examination, 2012 and stating to send list of his candidates and cash amount through his General Manager Pradeep Raghuvanshi, subsequently he sent list of his 08 candidates and 60 lakh rupees in cash through his General Manager and 07 candidates out of aforesaid candidates were got passed by using unfair means with the connivance of Nitin Mohindra by way of filling up the circles in their O.M.R. sheets and received the amount in illegally manner by hatching conspiracy which has been recovered/seized from his General Manager Pradeep Raghuvanshi. In this manner, the accused has committed a serious crime in well designed conspiracy by hatching conspiracy and committed organized crime. Evidences available against ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t is established by acceptable evidence. Our attention has been invited to order dated 27th November, 2014 passed by the trial Court, recording the request of the Special Public Prosecutor for deferring the proceedings of the case till the cases of other accused against whom supplementary charge sheets were filed were committed to the Court of Session and till supplementary charge sheet was filed against several other accused persons. In the said order, the Court directed the Investigating Officer to indicate as to against how many accused persons investigation is pending and the time frame for filing charge sheets/supplementary charge sheets. In response to the said order, the Investigating Officer, vide letter dated 25th December, 2014 filed before the trial Court, stated that 329 persons had already been arrested and 187 were yet to be arrested and efforts were being made to file the charge sheets by March 15, 2015 in compliance of the directions of this Court. Thus, the submission on behalf of the Appellant is that in view of delay in trial, the Appellant was entitled to bail. 9. On the other hand, learned Counsel for the State opposed the prayer for grant of bail by submitt ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tate of Kerala v. Raneef Sanjay Chandra v. CBI (2012) 1 SCC 40. 13. In Kalyan Chandra Sarkar (supra), it was observed: 8. It is trite law that personal liberty cannot be taken away except in accordance with the procedure established by law. Personal liberty is a constitutional guarantee. However, Article 21 which guarantees the above right also contemplates deprivation of personal liberty by procedure established by law. Under the criminal laws of this country, a person accused of offences which are non-bailable is liable to be detained in custody during the pendency of trial unless he is enlarged on bail in accordance with law. Such detention cannot be questioned as being violative of Article 21 since the same is authorised by law. But even persons accused of non-bailable offences are entitled to bail if the court concerned comes to the conclusion that the prosecution has failed to establish a prima facie case against him and/or if the court is satisfied for reasons to be recorded that in spite of the existence of prima facie case there is a need to release such persons on bail where fact situations require it to do so. In that process a person whose application for enlarge ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... (a) The nature of accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence. (b) Reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant. (c) Prima facie satisfaction of the court in support of the charge. (See Ram Govind Upadhyay v. Sudarshan Singh (2002) 3 SCC 598 and Puran v. Rambilas (2001) 6 SCC 338.) 22. While a detailed examination of the evidence is to be avoided while considering the question of bail, to ensure that there is no prejudging and no prejudice, a brief examination to be satisfied about the existence or otherwise of a prima facie case is necessary. An examination of the material in this case, set out above, keeping in view the aforesaid principles, disclose prima facie, the existence of a conspiracy to which Amarmani and Madhumani were parties. The contentions of the Respondents that the confessional statement of Rohit Chaturvedi is inadmissible in evidence and that should be excluded from consideration, for the purpose of bail is untenable. This Court had negatived a somewhat similar contention in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar thus: (SCC p. 538, para 19) 19. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n of liberty must be considered a punishment, unless it is required to ensure that an accused person will stand his trial when called upon. The courts owe more than verbal respect to the principle that punishment begins after conviction, and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and duly found guilty. 24. In the instant case, we have already noticed that the pointing finger of accusation against the Appellants is the seriousness of the charge . The offences alleged are economic offences which have resulted in loss to the State exchequer. Though, they contend that there is a possibility of the Appellants tampering with the witnesses, they have not placed any material in support of the allegation. In our view, seriousness of the charge is, no doubt, one of the relevant considerations while considering bail applications but that is not the only test or the factor: the other factor that also requires to be taken note of is the punishment that could be imposed after trial and conviction, both under the Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act. Otherwise, if the former is the only test, we would not be balancing the constitutional rights but rather reca ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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