Supreme Court upholds interim bail to Congress Nandigram candidate Milan Pradhan

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to interfere with a Calcutta High Court order granting interim bail to Congress candidate Milan Pradhan in six criminal cases, to enable him to contest the Nandigram Assembly bypoll.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana added that it is not expressing any comment on the merits of the matter, and that the State is free to contest any future application made by Pradhan to extend his bail period.

"We are informed the polling is over for the same and voting took place yesterday and counting is on October 9. The cases indicate certain serious offences but the exact idea of the order is to contest elections and take part in counting and surrender on October 21. In such circumstances, we don't deem to intervene in the impugned judgment. If (an) application is made for extension of bail or made into regular bail, then all contentions of State shall remain open. No opinion expressed on merits," the Court said.

Pradhan was arrested last month in connection with six cases relating to the 2007 Nandigram violence, shortly after he filed his nomination paper to contest in the upcoming Nandigram bypolls.

In petitions filed before the Calcutta High Court, the Congress leader had questioned the timing of his arrest, pointing out that he was detained hours after TMC leader Mamata Banerjee expressed her support for his candidature.

The six cases against Pradhan stemmed from the violence during the 2007 Nandigram land acquisition protests and include allegations of rioting and murder.

The State had opposed his bail pleas before the Calcutta High Court, citing the seriousness of the alleged offences.

On September 29, the High Court granted him interim bail after noting that all the cases in which Pradhan was arrested were from 2007. The Court noted that the State had ample time to execute the arrest warrants issued in the 19-year old cases.

This prompted the State to move the Supreme Court, seeking the cancellation of interim bail.

Representing the West Bengal government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta today denied allegations that Pradhan's recent arrest was politically motivated.

"Why did we arrest now? There are two answers. All this has to be disclosed in nomination form ..he disclosed and we took notice of the same. It was not because of election or that he was a candidate etc. We came to know that after 2007, nothing happened (the State government earlier led by TMC did not take any further action). That is why (the present government now led by BJP) took cognizance," he said.

The Bench, however, pointed out that the bulk of the cases against Pradhan were from 2007.

"But what is the criminal track record after 2007? Let us not forget that Nandigram violence gave rise to a lot of it," said CJI Kant.

The Court went on to hold that it was not inclined to interfere with the grant of interim bail to Pradhan. Accordingly, it closed the State's appeal.

The Nandigram bypoll was necessitated after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and incumbent West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari vacated the seat. Adhikari had won both Nandigram and Bhabanipur in the Assembly elections but chose to retain Bhabanipur, resulting in the vacancy in Nandigram.

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