SC says seer case different, turns down Pappu's bail

NEW DELHI: Refusing to draw a parallel between the cases involving the Kanchi seer and RJD MP Pappu Yadav, both accused of conspiracy and murder in separate cases, the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the controversial lawmaker''s plea for bail. It also took a serious view of his conduct during his incarceration.
A Bench of Justices N Santosh Hegde, S B Sinha and P K Balasubramanyan quashed an order of the Patna High Court granting bail to Yadav for the eighth time.
"The HC was totally in error," it said. After pronouncing its verdict, the Bench adjourned till February 1 the hearing on CBI''s plea for shifting Yadav from Beur Jail in Patna to a prison outside Bihar.
CBI''s counsel and additional solicitor-general Amarendera Sharan narrated the sequence of events and the antics of Yadav, both inside and outside the jail which necessitated his transfer to a jail outside the state. But Yadav''s counsel R K Jain referred to a Supreme Court judgment which had barred even convicted criminals from being shifted to a distant prison as it would make it difficult for him to meet his near relatives.
Yadav was arrested about six years ago for plotting to eliminate his political rival and CPM legislator Ajit Sarkar on June 14, 1998.
While allowing the appeals filed by Ajit Sarkar''s brother Kalyan Sarkar and CBI, the Bench held that the prosecution has established a "prima facie case against the accused".
The Bench said: "The conduct of the accused clearly indicates that enlarging him on bail will impede the progress of the trial."
Yadav''s counsel had argued that his client''s case was on a better footing than the case against the Kanchi seer, who was granted bail by the apex court on January 11. Jain had also argued that the Bench headed by Chief Justice R C Lahoti, which granted bail to the Sankaracharya, ought to have overruled the March 2004 judgment by which Yadav had been denied bail.
The seer was granted bail on the basis of facts in his case, therefore the question of the earlier Yadav case judgment being overruled in another case "does not arise", the Bench said.
"While deciding the cases on facts, more so in criminal cases, the court should bear in mind that each case must rest on its own facts and the similarity of facts in one case cannot be used to bear in mind the conclusion of facts in another case," the Bench explained.