Bail plea of five TNLA men dismissed

A division bench comprising Justice M Venugopal and Justice PN Prakash on observing that an act of the court shall prejudice no one, cannot be ignored, said, “This court cannot hold that, failure of the magistrate/judge to pass judicial orders on extension of remand applications would entail default bail to the accused and thus invent a hitherto unknown new category of default bail.” The five accused – Thiruselvam, Kaviyarasan, Kalailingam, Karthick and John Martin – had moved criminal appeals to call for the records on the file of the Special Court for NIA Cases at Puducherry, quash the same and grant bail.

The contention revolved around the aspect that NIA had failed to obtain proper remand after the stipulated period which expired in July 2014 in respect of Thiruselvam, Kaviarasan and Kalailingam, and in August 2014 in the case of Karthik and John Martin.

Countering this, NIAs counsel contended that much before the expiry of the periods, the Public Prosecutor filed the report under Section 43-D (2)(b) of the UAP Act on June 30, 2014 itself and July 04, 2014, following which a docket order extending remand has been passed on the said report by the Special Judge, Puducherry.

However, the bench said, “Default bail is a sort of a rap on the knuckles of the police for not completing the investigation and filing the final report within 90/60 days of first remand of the accused. For the failure of the Judge to pass a formal judicial order of extension of remand on the application of the prosecution, default bail is not the remedy.”