A Delhi court has granted bail to Sukesh Chandrasekhar in the money laundering case related to the AIADMK’s ‘leave’ electoral symbol, PTI reported.
Chandrasekhar was accused of making the alleged deal $50 crore to help the AIADMK faction maintain its ‘leave’ poll symbol, over which a case was registered and the middleman was arrested in 2017.
The case relates to an alleged attempt to bribe an Election Commission official by AIADMK (Amma) leader TTV Dinakaran for trying to get the party’s poll symbol of ‘two leaves’ in a by-election to the RK Nagar Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu. at that time, $Rs 1.30 crore and two luxury cars, a BMW and a Mercedes, were recovered from Chandrasekhar.
The accused served an “excessive period of detention”: the court
Special Judge Vishal Ghogni granted credit to Chandrasekhar on a personal bond and a surety bond $Each of them served an “excessive period of detention” for Rs 5 lakh, news agency PTI reported, saying they had actually served an “excessive period of detention”.
However, Chandrasekhar will remain in jail in the other pending cases against him. “Liberty is the most sacred rule of our Constitution,” the court observed, “and the Court cannot preach liberty by its decisions while manipulating the state on the specter of private legislation or economic crimes.”
Goggin maintained that the money laundering charge was serious in nature, but also stated that special legislation like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is not a state protest that is imposed on the freedom of the accused through the court, PTI reported.
The special judge therefore stated that even “the existence of 31 cases (including the present case) against the accused” could not nullify his right to bail in this particular case.
The judge said the custodial period in this case had already exceeded the “threshold of half the imprisonment proposed under Section 4 of the Pakistan Liberation Act” and stressed that Chandrasekhar has already been out on bail in 26 out of the 31 cases against him.
“With the proceedings, both in the original offense and the present complaint under the PMLA having been effectively suspended for the past several years, the accused has not only spent excessive period of detention during the trial, but may also suffer further prolonged detention without trial,” PTI quoted Gogni as saying.
