PANAJI
The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a Special Leave Petition (Criminal) filed by the Goa Police Crime Branch against the anticipatory bail granted to former chief minister and Margao MLA Digambar Kamat by the Special Judge at Panaji and the subsequent High Court order upholding the decision in the Louis Berger case.
When the case came up for final disposal, the Court asked the Goa Police to explain whether they still needed to secure Kamat for custodial interrogation now that the two chargesheets have been filed before the trial court.
While the order dismissing the petition is yet to be made available, and is unlikely to elaborate reasons, the dismissal of the case brings to an end a more than two-year attempt by the State administration to secure the custodial interrogation of the former chief minister.
The order was issued by Justices J Chelameshwar and Abdul Nazeer on Monday morning.
Co-accused Churchill Alemão was arrested and spent more than two months in jail before he was finally released on bail. Kamat was granted bail back on August 8, 2015 on grounds the investigating officer did not record in writing the reasons why Kamat ought to be arrested.
Section 41-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure mandates that if a person who is issued notice to appear before the investigating officer and he complies with it, he shall not be arrested unless for reasons to be recorded, the police officer is of the opinion that he ought to be arrested.
"Without such reasons being recorded in the Case Diary, it was not permissible for the IO to arrest such person when he is complying and continues to comply the notice under
Section 41-A of CrPC," the order reads adding that "there are no such reasons recorded in it, after the interrogation of the applicant on two occasions...." the judge had said in his order.
"The reasons must be in the case diary and it cannot be argued that such reasons are disclosed by the IO while opposing the bail application filed by the applicant on apprehending arrest at the hands of IO," the order had said.
A subsequent appeal in the High Court was also rejected.
Both Kamat and Alemão are charged with demanding and accepting bribes from Louis Berger to bag consultancy contracts for the water supply projects in Goa sponsored by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
