High Court quashes lower court’s bail order

NEW DELHI - The Delhi High Court Tuesday quashed a lower court’s order granting bail to an accused in September last year and pulled up the judge, since transferred, for his “poor understanding of criminal law”.

“Without going into the merits of the case and looking into the conduct of learned ACMM (additional chief metropolitan magistrate of New Delhi area) Ajay Pandey that he transgressed all limits of judicial propriety, the order dated Sep 18, 2010, passed by him granting bail to respondent (Brijesh Kanodia) is hereby set aside and the matter is remanded back to the present ACMM,” said Justice Shiv Narayan Dhingra.

Pulling up Pandey in this case, the court said this case was not the only incident of lapse by the judge.

“The learned ACMM in all cases has shown poor understanding of criminal law. This court had occasion to consider several other orders passed by the learned ACMM and was compelled to find out about other cases before the judge and the results were startling,” said the court.

“In all criminal cases decided by the New Delhi area ACMM, either the accused were discharged or acquitted on technical grounds, more specifically on the technical ground of sanction granted being not a valid sanction or granted without application of mind,” said the court.