Rejecting the parity principle for grant of bail to former Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura, the Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed his bail application in the 2G spectrum allocation case, allowing argument by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that being a public servant his case stood on a different footing from the other accused private persons.
Justice V.K. Shali said: “I do not agree with Behura's counsel that simply on the ground of parity, either of the apex court or that of the order passed by this court, the petitioner deserves to be extended the benefit of bail automatically.”
Rejecting the plea, the judge said: “No doubt, the present petitioner [Behura], along with others, has been charged in common criminal conspiracy to commit the offence of breach of trust, cheating, forging and document and using forged document as genuine, etc, but Mr. Behura has been separately and substantively charged along with A. Raja for offence under section 409 for breach of trust by a public servant read with section 120B and alternatively under section 420 for cheating read with section 120B IPC along with principal accused (Raja).''
The Court also said that it had the apprehension that if Mr. Behura was released on bail he would influence witnesses. However, at the same time, it said that there was no chance of his fleeing from justice.
While granting bail to DMK Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi and four others in the case last month, Justice Shali said that they deserved to be released on bail on the ground of the parity principle following grant of bail to five private company honchos by the Supreme Court earlier in the month.
On the applicability of the parity principle to Mr. Behura's case, Justice Shali said: “If that be the intention of the apex court, then the apex court would have made an observation in this regard and this court would have had no difficulty in granting bail to the present petitioner.” Counsel for Behura, Aman Lekhi, argued that the investigating agency had created artificial categories of private persons and public servants among the accused persons in the case as all of them, whether public servants or private persons, were facing prosecution under the same provisions of the Indian Penal Code.
On the role of Mr. Behura in the scam, Justice Shali said: “If Raja can be said to be kingpin or a pivot of the alleged conspiracy to commit the offence of breach of trust and cheating, then certainly the role of Behura and Chandolia, the other co-accused, has been that of a propeller of giving effect to the said idea of committing the offence of breach of trust or cheating so far as the allocation of 2G spectrum or the Unified Access Services is concerned.”
