Thaindian News

Gandhinagar, March 30 (IANS) The Gujarat High Court Tuesday allowed businessman Rajesh Adani, charged with custom duty evasion, four days’ relaxation in his conditional bail to permit him to go to Goa and depose before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials.
Justice H.B. Antani, hearing Adani’s petition for amendment in the conditions of his interim bail to go out of the state, granted him the permission for the specific purpose. The matter of Adani’s regular bail application is still pending and its next hearing is scheduled for April 8.

Adani was arrested by CBI in Goa Feb 27 but he was granted interim bail by Justice R.M.Doshit till March 2 after his relatives filed a writ of habeas corpus in the Gujarat High Court the same day.

A public interest lawsuit filed in the high court March 11, however, sought action against the judge and enquiry against the registrar for giving interim bail to Adani on the ground they had exceeded their brief.

The petitioner, advocate Girish Das also sought grant of interim bail to Adani be quashed.

It charged the then high court registrar (judicial) G.K. Upadhayay with forwarding Adani’s bail plea, without permission of the chief justice, to a judge who was not hearing habeas corpus or bail cases.

“The learned judge knowing fully well that the judicial business of habeas corpus or granting of bail, interim or otherwise, is not allotted to him, entertained the petition and passed orders on it, forwarded at his residence on a holiday (Feb 27 was a Sunday),” the petition says.

“A habeas corpus petition is exclusively the business of a division bench and a single judge has no authority to entertain such petitions and inspite of this, the learned judge entertained the said habeas corpus petition singly,” it adds.

The registrar had also come in for criticism from a judge for short-circuiting official procedure in placing Adani’s petition before him. Justice A.S.Dave, in his March 3 order, reprimanded Upadhyay for unnecessary haste in moving the case before him.

“The rich and the powerful cannot overlook the administrative proccess of the high court,” Dave said, summoning the registrar and took him to task for allowing the case to be moved before him without the endorsement of the chief justice.