The Chhattisgarh High Court has rejected the bail of the accused who was an Excise Officer involved in the sale of illegal liquor amounting to over 1200 crores without paying excise duty, giving bribes to the officials to the tune of over 500 crores and huge benefit from evading excise duty, GST and Income Tax.
The bench of Justice Arvind Kumar Verma has observed that corruption is not only a punishable offence but also undermines human rights, indirectly violating them, and systematic corruption, is a human rights’ violation in itself, as it leads to systematic economic crimes.
The bench while rejecting the bail application noted that the applicant is one of the main accused in the liquor scam. Having regard to the nature of allegations made against the applicant and the manner in which the present applicant is alleged to have involved in the commission of the offence and that the investigation is still going on and also taking note of the fact that the applicant along with the co-accused persons has caused huge financial loss to the State exchequer and the estimated proceeds of crime is around Rs. 16000 + crores.
The bench stated that economic offences are grave offence affecting the economy of the country as a whole and serious repercussions on the development of the country and in view of the fact that corruption is a really a human rights violation specially right to life liberty, equality and non discrimination, and it is an enormous obstacle to the realization of all human rights and looking to the seriousness of the crime, the charges have been alleged against the applicant by the prosecution agency and further taking into consideration the fact that charge-sheet has been filed against the applicant.
Background
After receiving a communication from the Enforcement directorate on 11.07.2023, prima facie a cognizable offence for commission of the offences under Sections 7 & 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Sections 420,468, 471, 120(B) of the IPC was registered against the applicant.
As per the FIR a criminal syndicate of high level State government officials, private persons and political executives of the State government was operating in the State of Chhattisgarh by collecting illegal bribes and controlling the high level management of important State Departments and State Public Sector undertakings.
The sale of liquor in the State of Chhattisgarh was one of the major sources of illegal earning of the syndicate in which the applicant along with co-accused Anil Tuteja, Arunpati Tripathi, MD CSMCL and other associates ie. Vikas Agrawal @ Subbu, Arvind Singh, Sanjay Diwan and Distillers, Excise Officials were the main actors of the syndicate.
The syndicate used to collect illegal money in three different ways from the sale of liquor in the State of Chhattisgarh.
Firstly, illegal commission charged from the liquor suppliers on the accounted sale of liquor in Chhattisgarh.
Secondly, sale of off-the-record unaccounted country liquor (popular in Chhattisgarh) from State run shops. This was done with the active involvement of distillers, Hologram manufacturers, bottle makers, transporters, man power management and district excise officials.
Thirdly, annual commission paid to allow distillers to operate in the State.
After analyzing the information and date shared by the Income Tax Department, it is established that a well planned systematic conspiracy was executed by the syndicate to earn illegal commission in the sale and licensing of liquor in the State of Chhattisgarh. Accordingly, an FIR was registered and an investigation was initiated.
The applicant/accused filed the bail application contending that the investigation qua the applicant is complete and the charge sheet has been filed on 1.07.2024 by the State and the statement of the applicant has not been recorded even once by the ACB after the police custody. He contended that a total of three charge sheets against 11 accused persons spanning nearly 13,000 pages with 457 witnesses have been filed by the investigating agency and the investigation is still going on.
Conclusion
The court held that there is no denial to the fact that the economic offences constitute a separate class of their own, but trite it is that presumption of innocence is one of the bedrocks on which the criminal jurisprudence rests. Time and again, Apex Court has reiterated the need to integrate the right of investigating agencies to have effective interrogation of the accused with the right of liberty of the accused.
The court held that grant of bail to the applicant is liable to be rejected.
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Case Details
Case Title: Anwar Dhebar Versus State Of Chhattisgarh
Case No.: MCRC No. 3455 of 2024
Date: 20.12.2024
Counsel For Petitioner: Arshdeep Singh Khurana
Counsel For Respondent: Vivek Sharma
