The Supreme Court on Friday declined Congress leader Pawan Khera’s petition to vacate a stay on a Telangana High Court order granting him transit anticipatory bail in a case registered by the Assam Police, Live Law reported.
A bench comprising Justices JK Maheshwari and Atul S Chandurkar also declined to extend Khera’s transit bail till April 21, so that he could approach an Assam court on April 20. The bench said that neither the High Court’s observations nor the Supreme Court’s stay order should influence the Assam court that decides on the Congress leader’s petition for anticipatory bail.
The case against Khera on charges of defamation, forgery and criminal conspiracy has been filed by Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.
The first information report was filed after the Congress leader claimed on April 5 that he had documentary evidence that showed that Riniki Bhuyan Sarma holds passports of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Antigua and Barbuda. Both the chief minister and his wife denied the allegations, and alleged that they were based on forged documents.
The High Court had on April 10 granted Khera transit anticipatory bail for a week. Transit anticipatory bail is a temporary protection from arrest granted in one state to enable persons to approach the courts where the case has been filed.
The Supreme Court, however, stayed the High Court order on April 15.
Khera then filed an application seeking that the stay order be vacated. However, on Friday, the Supreme Court refused to do so.
Lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the Congress leader, contended that the Supreme Court had issued the stay solely on the basis of the arguments of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, according to Live Law.
Mehta had claimed that Khera had relied on a fabricated document to seek anticipatory bail, having produced the front of his Aadhaar card and the back of his wife’s Aadhaar card to claim that he has a residence in Telangana.
Singhvi questioned whether the bench could not even grant him protection till Tuesday so that he could approach the court in Assam. “Am I a hardened criminal?” he asked, according to Bar and Bench. “Your lordships were misled. I made a small error of filing a wrong document.”
Maheshwari, however, asked how Singhvi could call the mix-up a “small error”. In response, the lawyer contended that this was a genuine mistake and not forgery, as the error had been clarified before the High Court itself, according to Live Law.
Himanta Biswa Sarma alleged on April 6 that the documents cited by the Congress had been supplied by a Pakistani social media group.
The chief minister had also claimed that the Congress had used details from a passport that had been allegedly lost. This document, he claimed, had been uploaded to the Pakistani social media group.
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