Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Dheeraj More of the Patiala House Court granted bail to Chandras after noting that they were arrested in the predicate offence in 2017 and have languished in jail for the last 2.5 years in the PMLA case even though the trial in the case is yet to commence.
“The maximum punishment in this case is 7 years and they have already undergone substantial part of the maximum punishment that can be awarded to them in this case. There are 71 accused persons, 121 witnesses and lakhs of supporting documents in the complaint. Considering the humongous set of documents, enormous prosecution witnesses and huge number of accused persons coupled with the fact that the trial in this case has not yet commenced despite passage of more than 2 years, there is no hesitation to record that its trial may go beyond 7 years i.e. even more than maximum punishment of this case,” the Court noted.
It said that the purpose of pre-trial detention can never be punitive and detention before being pronounced guilty of an offence should not become punishment without trial.
Source: Barandbench
