Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Mar 20: Court of Principal District and Sessions Judge (PD&SJ), Srinagar which is also a designated Court under the Money Laundering Act, rejected the bail plea to Mir Manzoor Gazanffer, here today.
While rejecting the bail, PD&SJ Abdul Rashid Malik observed that extra care and caution has to be taken while dealing with the application for grant of pre-arrest bail. The demand of an individual's liberty has to be matched with the larger interest of the public. In the instant case, there are allegations of clandestine siphoning of big amount of money. Such an offence is against the whole nation. The investigators have to be given full freedom for investigation.
The allegations against the petitioner being of very grave and serious nature, the grant of anticipatory bail to the applicant will certainly hamper proper investigation. The need for providing medical care and attention to the petitioner will be taken care of by the department and even by the jail authorities in the event of his arrest.
Economic offences constitute a class apart and need to be visited with a different approach in the matter of bail. The economic offences having deep-rooted conspiracies and involving huge loss of public funds need to be viewed seriously and considered as grave offences affecting the economy of the country as a whole and thereby posing serious threat to the financial health of the country. While granting bail, the court has to keep in mind the nature of accusations, the nature of evidence in support thereof, the severity of the punishment which conviction will entail, the character of the accused, circumstances which are peculiar to the accused, reasonable possibility of securing the presence of the accused at the trial, reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being tampered with, the larger interests of the public, State and other similar considerations.
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