Fake bail orders' racket busted in TN

Fake bail orders' racket busted in TN
T S SEKARAN & R RAJARAM

CHENNAI, DECEMBER 12: A major racket of fake bail orders, with the help of which several accused are suspected to have secured their release from jails, has been busted in Tamil Nadu.

The racket came to light following a complaint from the Registrar of the Madras High Court to the State CB-CID to thoroughly probe the case relating to fake bail orders. The issue was exposed when a murder case came up for hearing before a Division Bench comprising Justice N Dinakar and K Natarajan, recently. The advocate appearing for the accused in the murder case, which was earlier probed by the District Court, Tirunelveli, sought bail for two of the accused, on similar grounds by which two other accused in the case were granted bail earlier.

To prove his point, the advocate submitted the bail orders granted to the two other accused by the same Bench. The Bench found that the bail order produced was a ``fake'' one, after referring to relevant records. The matter was immediately referred to the Registrar of the HighCourt for further inquiry, sources said. The sources added that the Registrar of the High Court lodged a complaint with the State CB-CID, asking for a thorough and detailed investigation.

According to these sources, this was not the first time that the CB-CID had received such a complaint. A similar complaint regarding some accused getting out of prison through fake bail orders was received by the CB-CID earlier. The bench of Justice V S Sirpurkar and Justice M Karpagavinayagam had come across a similar case of fake bail orders and the matter was referred to the CB-CID for a probe.

The CB-CID, during the course of its investigation, was shocked to find that out of the 400 bail orders which it checked, 325 were found to be fake, the sources added. The sources alleged that the fake orders were produced with the connivance of the staff of the Madras High Court and the respective prison authorities.