Justice Kauser Edappagath of the Kerala High Court on Monday recused himself from hearing a petition filed by M. Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, seeking a three-month interim bail in the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered money-laundering case for undergoing medical treatment.
The court also ordered that the petition be posted before the judge who had earlier decided his bail pleas, after getting permission from the Chief Justice.
When the petition came up for hearing, Deputy Solicitor General of India S. Manu, appearing for ED, submitted that the Supreme Court had granted Sivasankar liberty to approach the special court for seeking interim bail in case of medical emergency only because the apex court was about to close for summer vacation. Therefore, the court had passed the order for a narrow and limited purpose. Besides, his petition was still pending before the Supreme Court which resumed its sittings.
Maintainability of plea
He further submitted that if the special court rejected a bail application, the petitioner would have to approach the High Court by invoking the powers under Section 439 (special powers of High Court or court of session on grant of bail) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.PC). However, Sivasankar had filed the application under Section 482 of the Cr.PC invoking the inherent powers of the High Court. Therefore, the Deputy Solicitor General (DSG) insisted on arguing on the maintainability of the petition. The court orally observed that if the DSG had some reservation about hearing the matter under 482, the court could not hear it.
In his petition, Mr. Sivasankar submitted that he was suffering from chronic spine-related respiratory and knee problems which required urgent medical treatment.
