Bail is rule, jail is exception
Friday, 09 August 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
After being lodged in jail for 17 months in connection with the money laundering cases linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam, the senior AAP leader and former deputy chief minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia came out on bail. Allowing him the bail, the Supreme Court pulled up the lower courts, saying that his long incarceration sans trial had deprived him of the right to speedy justice.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan averred in its ruling that bail is rule and jail is exception, observing that prolonged incarceration before being pronounced guilty of an offence should not be permitted to become punishment without trial. The bench also described Sisodia as a man with ‘deep roots in society’.
Notably, the CBI arrested him on February 26, 2023 for alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of the now- scrapped Delhi excise policy 2021-22. He resigned from the Delhi cabinet on February 28, 2023. The ED arrested him the following month in the same case.
