Economic offences constitute a class apart and need to be visited with different approach in matter of bail: Supreme Court
WHILE rejecting the bail plea of YS Jaganmohan Reddy, MP and son of former AP Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the Supreme Court yesterday observed,
Economic offences constitute a class apart and need to be visited with a different approach in the matter of bail. The economic offence having deep rooted conspiracies and involving huge loss of public funds needs to be viewed seriously and considered as grave offences affecting the economy of the country as a whole and thereby posing serious threat to the financial health of the country.
While granting bail, the court has to keep in mind the nature of accusations, the nature of evidence in support thereof, the severity of the punishment which conviction will entail, the character of the accused,circumstances which are peculiar to the accused, reasonable possibility of securing the presence of the accused at the trial, reasonable apprehensionof the witnesses being tampered with, the larger interests of thepublic/State and other similar considerations .
The Court also rejected the bail application of industrialist and co-accusedNimmagadda Prasad (aka Matrix Prasad) and observed,
Unfortunately, in the last few years, the country has been seeing an alarming rise in white-collar crimes, which has affected the fiber of the country's economic structure. Incontrovertibly, economic offences have serious repercussions on the development of the country as a whole .
The Supreme Court quoted from an earlier judgement,
The entire Community is aggrieved if the economic offenders who ruin the economy of the State are not brought to book. A murder may be committed in the heat of moment upon passions being aroused. An economic offence is committed with cool calculation and deliberate design with an eye on personal profit regardless of the consequence to the Community. A disregard for the interest of the Community can be manifested only at the cost of forfeiting the trust and faith of the Community in the system to administer justice in an even handed manner without fear of criticism from the quarters which view white collar crimes with a permissive eye unmindful of the damage done to the national economy and national interest …