In a recent judgement, the Madhya Pradesh High Court (HC) refuses to cancel bail under the Excise Act, 1915 in absence of supervening circumstances.
The State of Madhya Pradesh filed a petition under Section 439(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 seeking the cancellation of bail granted to Sanjay Sharma, the non-applicants / accused under Section 439 of the Cr.P.C.
This non-applicant is facing trial under Section 49A(1) r/w Section 42 of M.P. Excise Act, 1915, which was charged on the non-applicant/ accused at the relevant point of time was working as a manager in the Imperial Commercial Industries, Udyogpuri, Maksi Road of which co-accused Aijaz Husain is the proprietor. The police conducted a search of the premises and ceased 50 litres of Isopropyl alcohol from the factory and arrested the nonapplicant.
The above search was conducted after the death of 16 innocent persons due to consumption of spurious liquor and the said spurious liquor was prepared and sold by other accused by purchasing 100-litre spirit from Imperial Chemicals.
The non-applicant filed an application under Section 439 of Cr.P.C. before this court on two grounds firstly that 100-litre isopropyl alcohol was sold to Deepmala vide invoice dated 17.10.2020 whereas the incident took place on 14.10.2020, secondly the applicant did not know that the purchaser of the isopropyl chemical would be used for the preparation of spurious liquor.
The State Government argued that Imperial Chemical did not have a license to store and sell the spirit and the forged invoice dated 17.10.2020 was prepared in its computer system to save from this prosecution whereas there was no sale of any type of chemical from the factory of the non-applicant as such order was received from Deepmala.
It was observed that for cancelling bail once granted, the Court must consider whether any supervening circumstances have arisen or the conduct of the accused post grant of bail demonstrates that it is no longer conducive to a fair trial to permit him to retain his freedom by enjoying the concession of bail during the trial.
A Coram comprising Justice Vivek Rusia held that no case is made out for cancellation of the bail and dismissed the petition.
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