Keeping an accused in custody without trial is akin to detention which hampers liberty, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday while deprecating the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) practice of filing supplementary chargesheets in money laundering cases to defeat the accused right of getting default bail.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta took exception to the ED filing four supplementary chargesheets, the latest on March 1, 2024, in a money laundering case arising from alleged illegal mining in Jharkhand.
The top court was hearing the default bail plea of Prem Prakash, an alleged associate of former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren. Prakash was arrested in August, 2022 after raids during which two AK-47 rifles, 60 live rounds and two magazines were claimed to have been found at his home in Ranchi. He was booked for the offences of money laundering and under the Arms Act.