NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday stayed onerous conditions imposed by Allahabad HC while granting bail to SP member Azam Khan in the alleged grabbing of enemy property at Rampur, UP, and stopped handing over of land to government to be used for training purposes of paramilitary forces.
This is a rare instance where senior advocate Kapil Sibal didn’t have to argue a single sentence. A vacation bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Bela M Trivedi, after discussing for a few minutes, dictated the order staying a portion of the HC order while terming the conditions imposed “disproportionate” and in excess of the settled parameters governing discretion to grant bail.
The bench said, “Prima facie, the conditions which have been imposed by the HC for the grant of bail are disproportionate and have no reasonable nexus to the conditions which are required to be imposed to secure the presence of the accused and to ensure that the fairness of the trial is not impeded… Prima facie, the HC, while imposing conditions for the grant of bail, has exceeded the settled parameters governing the exercise of the jurisdiction under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973.”
The dispute pertained to Azam, his family members and others conspiring to grab evacuee property measuring 13.8 hectares of one Imamuddin Qureshi, who had migrated to Pakistan after the country was partitioned.