CHENNAI: A Chennai special court for corruption cases on Tuesday granted bail to B T Arasakumar, the prime accused in Rs 100cr private school recognition cheating case. The bail is granted “as the indefeasible right to release on bail accrues in favour of the accused following non-filing of final report by the police within the legal time limit,” the court said.“The accused earns this bail not because of merit to his case but due to the default on the part of the investigating agency to complete the investigation within the period stipulated 90 days under BNSS,” special judge L S Sathiyamurthy said.Explaining the concept of a default bail, the court said there was no such provision in the old CrPC. It was first introduced in Section167 of CrPC with effect from April 1, 1974. This concept of default bail has been well recognised by the law and courts in India. It has been incorporated in Section 187 (3) in the newly adopted BNSS. This provision, which was adopted without any substantial change or modification from the previous code, is applicable to the present petition on hand.The petitioner has been in incarceration since June 27, and 92 days have lapsed. The Central Crime Branch (CCB), Chennai, has not filed the final report on completion of the investigation, the court said.Further, when this bail application came up for hearing, the police filed a request in writing for extension of time as it has proposed to conduct further searches to collect evidence. Therefore, the investigation is not completed within the stipulated time of 90 days, is a fact not in dispute, the court added.The court was informed that on Sept 28, the Madras high court quashed the detention of the accused under the Goondas Act.
