New Delhi, Nov 28: The Supreme Court (SC) Tuesday granted bail to the controversial self-proclaimed godman from Orissa Sura Baba, who was accused in several cases, citing his prolonged custody, but refrained from expressing opinion on the case.
A plea seeking bail for the godman came for hearing before a two-judge bench of the apex court comprising Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit. The bench heard the plea that was earlier rejected by the Orissa High Court July 31, 2017. A Special Leave Petition challenging the earlier Orissa HC order was filed before the SC for bail.
In its bail order, the two-judge SC bench said, “Having regard to the fact that the petitioner has been in custody for more than two years but without expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, the petitioner is granted bail to the satisfaction of the trial court.”
The apex court in its order, as accessed by Orissa POST Tuesday, also maintained that if the state government feels aggrieved by the SC order, it has the liberty to move the court. The SC order said, “Since this order is being passed ex-parte, the respondent state is at liberty to move this court, if aggrieved. The special leave petition is, accordingly, disposed of.”
Earlier, the Orissa High Court had dismissed two bail pleas in 2016 when the investigation into the case was not over and asked the petitioners to apply for bail later when the probe was over. Subsequently, Sura Baba approached the Orissa HC in 2017 after the investigation was done. However, the plea was again dismissed in HC.
While rejecting the bail plea in July 2017, the Orissa HC order had said, “The petitioner has thousands of followers as per the prosecution report and when remaining inside jail custody, attempts are being made by the petitioners to throttle the neck of justice by adopting unfair method, granting of bail to the petitioners in such circumstances would be just like giving death knell to the prosecution case.”
Surendranath Mishra alias Sura Baba had been charged by the police under different Sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which included, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property (Sec 420), dishonest or fraudulent execution of deed of transfer containing false statement of consideration (Sec 423), forgery of valuable security, will, etc (Sec 467), forgery for purpose of cheating (Sec 468) among others. (Post News Network)
