SC modifies bail conditions of 2 accused in cheating cases, reduces personal bond amount

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has agreed to reduce the amount of personal bond of the two accused, who were lodged in jail for three years in connection with separate 26 cheating cases.

A vacation bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and BV Nagarathna modified the bail conditions of the two accused -- Ramkrishna Premchand Dubey and Satishchandra Bhagwatiprasad Mishra.

The court has reduced the personal bond amount to Rs 50,000 each. Both the petitioners were represented by advocates Alakh Alok Srivastava and Chandan Kumar Singh.

The petitioner's advocate said despite the order of bail being granted to them by the Bombay High Court, they are unable to comply with the conditions on which bail was granted to them and could not have been released on bail, so far.

The grievance of the petitioners is that in all the cases, while granting them bail, one of the conditions put by the High Court is that the petitioners have to execute a personal bond of Rs 1,00,000 and two solvent sureties who are respectable permanent residents of Nagpur, where the commission of the crime was committed.

Although, the High Court later reduced it to Rs 75,000 and the rest of the conditions continue to be the same.

The petitioner, in his plea, said that they are senior citizens who are languishing in jail as undertrial prisoners for the last about 3 years for alleged commission of offences under section 420/406/34 of IPC and under section 3 of MPID Act, which are punishable with maximum imprisonment of 7 years, for the sole reason of non-fulfilment of onerous and stringent bail conditions.

The top court agreed to modify the bail conditions. In reference to matter registered with Paratvada police station and Chandur Bazar police station in Amravati, the petitioners were asked by the top court to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 each with one solvent surety of Rs 10,000 each respectively, which can be from outside the State of Maharashtra as well.

In the rest of the cases, the petitioners were asked to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 each and on compliance with such conditions, the petitioners shall be released on bail.

Both petitioners were directors of a company on which there was an allegation that the company collected money from the public with the promise to give a good return in form of interest but later on closed its offices and did not pay any return.

The depositors filed at least 26 FIRs in various districts of the state of Maharashtra against the company for accepting deposits from several persons without authorization from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and not returning the amount to the depositors. (ANI)