Supreme Court decision on Shahabuddin’s bail plea today

The Supreme Court will pronounce its orders on applications seeking the cancellation of bail to RJD leader Mohammad Shahabuddin on Friday, even as he informed the court that he was willing to stay away from Bihar.

A bench of Justices Prinaki Chandra Ghose and Amitav Roy reserved orders at the conclusion of arguments from counsels for the state of Bihar and Mr Shahabuddin.

Shakar Naphde and Shoeb Alam, appearing for Mr Shahabuddin, submitted that their client was willing to stay away from Bihar and shift to Delhi as a condition for the bail, granted on September 7, to not be cancelled.

Blaming the media for causing prejudice, Mr Naphde said that the reason given by the Patna high court for releasing him on bail was that there was a likelihood of delay in the completion of the trial, and a copy of the chargesheet was not given to the accused. Referring to this submission, the bench pulled up the state of Bihar as well as the trial court for not supplying a copy of the chargesheet.

When senior counsel for Bihar, Dinesh Diwedi, said that it was his inference that a copy of the chargesheet would have been furnished to the accused, Justice Roy said, “If chargesheet has not been given, we have reservations over the trial. It is something very serious if the chargesheet has not been submitted in one-and-half years.”

“It can’t be one sided. Is it not the duty of the prosecution to furnish a copy to the accused .”

Mr Naphade told the court that the chargesheet was purposefully not provided to the accused “since there is nothing against the accused in the chargesheet”. The counsel said that the accused was a victim of a media trial. An image was created where, if any person dies in Bihar, Mr Shahabuddin is to be blamed, his counsel said. Once a man attains notoriety, he becomes a punching bag. The accused has a fundamental right to a speedy trial. That right is being violated by the state merely to prolong the incarceration of the accused, Mr Naphde said.

However, advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Chandrakeshwar Prasad — whose three sons were murdered at the alleged behest of the RJD leader — submitted that Mr Shahabuddin was making a false claim. He argued that the RJD leader could not have challenged the order taking cognizance of the complaint against him without having a copy of the chargesheet.