Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: July 15, 2022 at 17:32 IST
The Patna High Court judge’s misadventure who ordered the businessman Subrata Roy Sahara’s arrest on May 13 and initiating recovery proceedings of matured deposits from Sahara group companies in a case of cheating unrelated to the Sahara group in which an accused was seeking anticipatory bail was frowned upon by the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar the Bench said, “From my limited experience of 22 years as a judge I can say this order has gone beyond its jurisdiction. It was not a PIL which the high court was hearing.”
The Bench, comprising Justice JB Pardiwala, wondered how an order of arrest could be made when Roy was not a accused in the High Court’s hearing on anticipatory bail. The bench asked, “How can the HC say that the presence of this person (Roy) is necessary for deciding the anticipatory bail plea, and added, “If this order were passed by any district judge, the high court would have come down very hard and even recommended the judicial officer to be sent for training at the Judicial Academy.”
Justice Sandeep Kumar, the HC judge in question, was hearing over a plea brought by Pramod Kumar Saini and two other individuals who apprehended being arrested in a cheating and forgery cases in connection with businesses that defrauded investors out of more than three crore rupees.
In the same proceedings, the Judge entertained applications from a number of Sahara Group investors who said that the company had failed to refund their deposits after they had long since matured. The HC summoned Roy to personally appear in court and present a plan for refunding the matured deposits of investors.The HC also added Roy and the Sahara group as parties to its proceedings.
“We do not say that the high court does not have the power to pass such orders,” the Bench reassured the state. It should only be done when a legitimate reason for exercising jurisdiction arises; it should not be done when deciding an anticipatory bail plea. Even if something needed to be brought up suo moto, the matter would have gone to the Chief Justice of the Patna high court to assign the case to a bench.