The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to five top corporate executives accused in the 2G case, who were jailed seven months, but set stringent conditions to protect witnesses being “influenced”. The CBI was also given full liberty to seek cancellation of the bail if any of these conditions was violated.
Hours afterwards, CBI special judge O.P. Saini ordered their release from Tihar Jail.
The bail for the five executives could pave the way for the other 12 accused in the case, including former communications minister A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and former top telecom bureaucrats, to claim bail on the same grounds spelt out by the Supreme Court.
The five executives were granted bail by a two-member bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and H.L. Dattu mainly on the ground that they could not be held in judicial custody for an “indefinite” period when there was no hope of early end to the trial, and the offence they were charged with carried a maximum sentence of seven years.
“When undertrial prisoners are detained in jail custody for an indefinite period, Article 21 (right to liberty) of the Constitution is violated. Every person, detained or arrested, is entitled to a speedy trial, the question is whether the same is possible in the present case,” the Supreme Court said.
The top court bench directed each of them to execute bail bond of `5 lakh and two sureties of like amount each before the special judge.
Unitech promoter Sunjay Chandra, DB Reality’s Vinod Goenka and three top Reliance Telecom executives — Gautam Doshi, Hari Nair and Surendra Pipara — thus became the first of the 17 accused in the 2G case to gain their liberty after being sent to judicial custody by the CBI special judge on April 20.
After this, Ms Kanimozhi and six other accused filed applications before the Delhi high court to advance the date of their bail hearing, now set for December 1.