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The Supreme Court of India dismissed an appeal filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), affirming that the duration for granting default bail in a criminal case would include the remand period. The court ruling in this regard would also apply retrospectively, as per the three-judge bench that delivered the verdict. The court further directed that the pending petitions pertaining to the case be placed before a two-judge bench.
The larger legal issue pertained to whether the day on which an accused is remanded to custody should be included in calculating the 60-day period for granting default bail. The question arose during the hearing of ED's appeal against a Bombay High Court order granting bail to the former promoters of Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL), Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan.
The ED had challenged the High Court order granting bail to the Wadhawan brothers, stating that the agency had filed part of the charge sheet through e-mail, a day before the 60-day period ended. The federal probe agency had claimed that it was not in violation of the procedure and had filed the charge sheet in physical form on July 13, 2020.
The Bombay High Court had granted bail to the Wadhawan brothers on August 20, 2020, stating that mandatory default bail was the sequel to non-filing of the charge sheet. The High Court had held that the ED had failed to file its charge sheet within the stipulated 60-day period. However, the Wadhawans were not released on bail as they were in Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) custody at the time of the ruling.
According to Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, an accused can be detained for a maximum of 90 days for a crime punishable with death, life imprisonment, or a sentence of over 10 years. If the investigation relates to any other offence, the accused can be detained for 60 days. If the investigative agencies do not complete their investigation within these time limits, the arrested person is entitled to 'default bail'. The court clarified that the remand period would be calculated from the date on which the magistrate remands the accused, and that the accused becomes entitled to default bail if the charge sheet is not filed by the 61st or 91st day of the remand period.
The Supreme Court had earlier stayed the Bombay High Court order granting bail to the Wadhawan brothers in September 2020, and had issued a notice to the accused on the ED's plea against the High Court order. On February 23, 2021, the top court referred the legal question to a larger bench, which has now been answered in favour of including the remand period while calculating the duration for granting default bail in a criminal case.
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