On Monday, 147 jailed workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) will wait patiently for the decision of the Supreme Court on a bail application of the two of the workers, Sunil Kumar and Kanwaljeet. The workers have been in jail since MSIL manager Awanish Kumar Dev was killed in an instance rioting in Maruti's Manesar plant on July 18, 2012. The SC had on January 30 given two weeks to the Haryana government to respond as to why the workers should not be granted bail. If they are granted bail, several of the workers charged on eighteen counts, including rioting, and under Section 302 of IPC for murder of Mr Dev, may apply for bail as well.
The rioting in July 2012 was preceded by months of strikes by the workers demanding an independent union in 2011 that had caused a loss of over Rs. 2500 crores to MSIL, India's largest automobile manufacturer.
The District Court in Gurgaon has rejected the workers' bail plea thrice, most recently in June 2014. The High Court of Punjab and Haryana has turned it down twice. Turning down the bail application of the workers the first time, in May 2013, Justice K.C. Puri had observed: “The incident is most unfortunate occurrence which has lowered the reputation of India in the estimation of the world. Foreign investors are not likely to invest the money in India out of fear of labour unrest.”
A year back, the SC on February 17, 2014, had turned down the workers’ bail plea as the examination of eye witnesses was pending. It had asked the local court to expedite examining eye witnesses by April 30, 2014. “The trial court did not examine the witnesses in the prescribed period by end of April and the workers applied for bail in May 2014, but the trial court dismissed their application. After the two witnesses’ examination, both of whom are labour contractors with MSIL, in which both failed to identify the workers named by them, we had approached the High court of Punjab and Haryana,” said Rebecca John, representing the workers in the Supreme Court.
Disposing of the matter a second time, the High Court on December 23, 2014, had said that it found the applicants entitled to bail but that they should approach SC for the same. “Taking into consideration the totality of the above-said circumstances, I am of the opinion that in view of the detention suffered by the petitioners as under-trials, the nature of evidence produced by the prosecution agency and the observations of the Apex court, the petitioners seem to be entitled to concession of bail. Expressing my inability to grant any relief to the petitioners on account of the fact that the earlier application for bail has been specifically dismissed by the Apex court with liberty to prefer bail application after re-examination of witnesses, I am of the opinion that relief can be availed by approaching the Supreme Court,” noted Justice Bedi.
“The labour contractors had failed to recognise the workers named by them but since then other eye witnesses have identified the accused in the Test Identification Parade,” said D.C. Gupta, a lawyer representing MSIL.
