The bench of Justice Vishnu Sahai while rejecting the anticipatory bail application held that the judiciary could not be oblivious to the fact that the ``applicant is a part and parcel of the racket of fabricated documents on which the passes were being issued, which caused a loss to the railways and created great inconvenience to those travelling on valid tickets''.

The matter came to light when Dayma, who had used such a pass, that allowed him free travel in II AC, for coming from Solapur to Mumbai on July 8th, 1999 sent his associate to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station to obtain the return ticket to Solapur. The clerk at the CST counter, suspected the validity of the pass and impounded itimmediately, asking the associate to ask Dayma to meet the railway authorities and send the documents and other papers on which the pass was issued. The papers were sent to the CR, but Dayma never appeared.

The matter was handed over to the police, which filed a CR no 160/99 under sections 420, 465, 467, 471, 475 of the IPC at the instance of the vigilance officer of CR, Suryanarayan Tiwari. The CR details the involvement of at least 21 persons in the organisation and preparation of such fake passes, in the name of the Rajya Sabha Committee on Railways (Expenditure), which in reality does not exist. The passes were formed, based on the I cards and letters purportedly written by the joint director of the committee.

Even as the investigations were on, the police discovered a similar pass issued on July 13, 1999 at Ghatkopar which was issued in the name of one Ratnakar Pathare, which allowed for taking a second person, on free travel. Both Pathare, and the person he was to take free alongwith him, DeepakPagare, were arrested.

Dayma first approached the sessions court with his anticipatory bail, which was rejected by Principal Judge A S Aguiar on August 18, 1999. Dayma's counsel Shirish Gupte, argued before Justice Vishnu Sahai that his client was not aware that the pass was fake. He claimed that the pass was handed over to him at a public function in Solapur on March 18, 1999 where he was given the pass by another social worker, Shankar Kunchi-Kurve. Gupte even showed photographs of the function where the pass was handed to Dayma. Gupte claimed that his client never suspected the pass, since he was able to use it to obtain a free ticket to Solapur.

However, Justice Vishnu Sahai maintained that the custody of Dayma was necessary for the investigations in the case. He rejected the argument that since Dayma was the president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Seva Dal, he should be allowed the anticipatory bail. ``The principle of the rule of law means that everybody is equal in the eyes of law,'' statedJustice Vishnu Sahai and held that nobody can claim any preferential treatment under it.