The Madras High Court has granted time till November 22 for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file its counter affidavit to a second bail petition preferred by P. Senthil Murugan, a Food Safety and Drugs Administration department official, booked on charges of permitting illegal manufacture and sale of gutkha.
Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan accepted a request made by Special Public Prosecutor K. Srinivasan that the investigating agency may be given an opportunity to file its objections in writing before the court could take a decision on the plea for grant of bail on the prime ground that the petitioner was under incarceration for more than 70 days.
During the course of arguments, the petitioner’s counsel brought it to the notice of the court that the petitioner was entitled to statutory bail on completion of 60 days of incarceration since the CBI had not completed the investigation by then.
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The agency had wrapped the probe and filed a charge sheet in the case only on Thursday.
The petitioner had withdrawn his first bail application on October 22 after Justice M. Dhandapani was not inclined to grant bail.
Then, the petitioner’s counsel accused the CBI of going behind only the “small fish”, though big names, such as a sitting Minister as well as officers in the rank of Director General of Police, had been named in the case.
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“They [CBI] are partisan in their approach. Compared to the big names involved in this case, I am a small man. They have so far not laid their hands on those persons,” the petitioner’s counsel contended. He also pointed out that the present petitioner issued licence to a pan masala manufacturing unit with the specific condition to avoid use of nicotine or tobacco.