Supreme Court Grants Interim Bail To 3 More Accused In Chhattisgarh Coal Levy Scam Case

The Supreme Court today granted interim bail to 3 more accused in the Chhattisgarh Coal Levy scam case, namely Laxmikant Tiwari, Manish Upadhyay and Parekh Kurre.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order, adopting the reasons recorded in the earlier March 3 order whereby other accused in the case (including ex-civil servants Saumya Chaurasia and Ranu Sahu) were granted similar relief.

The grant of interim bail is subject to the accused furnishing satisfactory bail bonds before the trial court. By the next date, the Court has also sought a status report from the authorities on the conduct of the 3 accused post their release on interim bail.

Notably, as many as 23 petitions were listed before the Court. However, the matters being pursued by the Enforcement Directorate had to be adjourned due to unavailability of Additional Solicitor General SV Raju on account of some personal difficulty. In accused-Suryakant Tiwari's case, the bench orally said that it was not inclined to grant interim bail. "He is the main accused, the main culprit...", remarked Justice Kant.

During the hearing, Senior Advocate Siddharth Aggarwal also pointed out that one of the petitions is a writ petition filed on behalf of accused-Ranu Sahu pertaining to repeated and successive arrests by the agencies. Noting that the Court had only tagged the said petition with the rest of the cases, Justice Kant said "we will see if there is necessity to entertain the petition or not". Posting the matter on May 15, the bench added that meanwhile, the High Court shall decide Ranu Sahu's bail plea (which is listed before it on May 5).

Responding to the State's submissions, Justice Kant was also heard commenting with regard to the accused, "they are not hardened criminals...allegation is that they are persons who misused political power at a particular point of time and indulged in corruption...".

Appearance: Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave, Mukta Gupta, Siddharth Aggarwal and Gaurav Agarwal(for petitioners); ASG Aishwarya Bhati and DAG Ravi Sharma

Case Title: RANU SAHU Versus STATE OF CHHATTISGARH, SLP(Crl) No. 15941/2024 (and connected cases)