New Delhi: The Bombay high court on December 9, Wednesday, ruled that a sessions court cannot stay operation of its own order, and quashed and set aside a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court's order staying the bail granted to cricket bookie Naresh Gaur in the Antilia bomb scare case.

A single bench of Justice S.K. Shinde was hearing an application filed by Gaur, challenging the special NIA court's decision to stay the bail granted to him for 25 days.

In the order, Justice Shinde noted that a sessions court judge does not have the power to stay his own order and that only the high court can stay the operation of a bail order where it deems necessary so as to prevent abuse of process of the court or to meet the ends of justice.

"In my view, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) does not empower the sessions judge to stay the operation of his order of grant of bail. That even otherwise, the learned Sessions Judge has not justified the order (granting stay) by recording the reasons in suspending his own order," Justice Shinde said.

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According to LiveLaw, the special NIA court stayed the operation of its own bail order of November 20, 2021, for 25 days for two reasons. First, to allow the NIA time to appeal against the grant of bail in the high court, and second, it is empowered to stay its own order of grant of bail, in terms of the provisions of Section 309(1) of the CrPC.

For the second case, the special court relied on the judgment of the Bombay high court in the case of C.P. Nangia vs Omprakash Agarwal and Ors (1994).

Shirish Gupte, senior counsel, representing the petitioner, said that the sessions judge could not have taken recourse to Section 309 of the CrPC (power to postpone or adjourn proceedings) to derive the powers to stay his own order, because the section relates to general provisions as to ‘enquiry’ and ‘trial’.

He submitted that the power to grant bail is neither an ‘enquiry’ nor a ‘trial’ and therefore the judgment in the case of C.P. Nangia could not have been relied upon.

According to LiveLaw, the NIA has also not yet appealed against the order granting bail to Gaur.

The NIA had arrested Gaur in March this year, accusing him of being involved in the Antilia bomb scare case and in the killing of businessman Mansukh Hiran. He had purchased SIM cards which were used by Mumbai cop Sachin Waze – who has since been dismissed – to execute the conspiracy, the NIA claimed in the chargesheet.

Antilia is the name of the multi-story residence of businessman Mukesh Ambani in south Mumbai, near which an explosives-laden vehicle was found parked in February this year. A few days later, Hiran, who purportedly owned that vehicle, was found dead in a creek in Thane.

On November 20, a special NIA court granted bail to Gaur, the first person to be granted bail in the case. However, the special court stayed its own order after the prosecution requested for the same, saying it wished to challenge the grant of bail before an appellate court.

Gaur then approached the Bombay high court, challenging the special court's stay on his bail order.

Justice Shinde on Wednesday accepted the contentions and set aside the stay order.

(With inputs from PTI)

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