Madras High Court dismisses statutory bail plea of ED officer Ankit Tiwari

The Madras High Court on Friday dismissed the statutory bail application filed by Ankit Tiwari, an officer of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) who was arrested in December last year by the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) following allegations of bribery..In an order passed on March 15, Justice M Dhandapani of the Madurai bench of Madras High Court dismissed Tiwari’s plea challenging a local court’s order that denied him statutory bail.The High Court said that while the personal liberty of an applicant seeking bail was paramount, in the present case, DVAC had failed to file a chargesheet so far because the Supreme Court had temporarily stayed the investigation in the case on January 25 when the DVAC was 55 days into its probe..Justice Dhandapani said that in such circumstances, the High Court’s hands were tied, and it was best that Tiwari approached the Supreme Court to seek clarification on how such stay has to be interpreted in the context of his bail application..“Though the personal liberty of the petitioner is of paramount importance, equally the order of the Supreme Court also has to be followed in which case, this Court is put in a catch-22 situation, where applying Article 21 and granting default bail to the petitioner would prejudice the rights of the respondent as the order of the Supreme Court had prevented them from filing the charge sheet, but for which the present situation of default bail would not have arisen. With great respect, it is to be stressed that when a blanket order of interim stay has been granted by the Apex Court, interpreting the order in any other way than the one in which it is couched would be not only an act of disrespect to the Supreme Court, but would also be a contemptuous act to which this Court should not be a party,” the High Court said..Tiwari was arrested by the DVAC after allegedly having been caught accepting a bribe of ₹20 lakh.Subsequently the ED had approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the probe into the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).The Supreme Court had issued notice on that plea on January 25 and also stayed the probe by DVAC..On February 6 this year, a special court in Dindigul district in Tamil Nadu had rejected his application seeking statutory bail leading to the plea before the High Court. .Advocate G Karuppsamy Pandian appeared for Ankit Tiwari.Additional Public Prosecutor A Thiruvadi Kumar appeared for the respondent State government..[Read Order]