HC questions govt hurry to nix DMK leader’s bail

Chennai

Justice N Satish Kumar made the observation while hearing a plea moved by Central Crime Branch (CCB) seeking to cancel the bail granted to Bharathi by a special court in Chennai on June 1.

Responding to the additional public prosecutor’s submission that the threat of COVID-19 was one of the prime grounds on which the special court had granted bail and that taking such issues into consideration would lead to lawlessness in the State, the judge asked whether the State had been showing similar interest in other criminal cases, too.

“If the prosecution was so confident that a clear case had been made out against the accused under the SC/ST Act, then it could very well complete the investigation at the earliest, file a charge sheet and take steps to commence the trial,” the judge said.

To this, the prosecutor claimed that the present case should not become a precedent. However, Justice Satish Kumar ordered notice to Bharathi and posted CCB’s appeal seeking cancellation of bail for further hearing to June 19.

Bharathi was booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 for allegedly claiming at a meeting in February that some from the Scheduled Caste became judges because of alms provided by late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi.