A sessions court in Maharashtra's Thane district has refused to grant interim bail to police officer Sachin Vaze, who has been facing heat in the death case of Mansukh Hiran, noting that there was prima facie evidence and material against him.
Additional sessions Judge Shailendra Tambe, in the order that was made available on Saturday, refused to grant interim bail to Vaze and said his custodial interrogation was required.
"Thiscourtisnotagreedtogrant interim bail to the applicant (Vaze) because there is prima facie evidence and material against the applicant. The custodial interrogation of the applicant is necessary," the order said.
Vaze had on Friday filed an application seeking pre-arrest bail.
His lawyer A M Kalekar had sought the court to grant Vaze interim protection from arrest on the ground that he was cooperating with the investigation.
Additional public prosecutor Vivek Kadu, however, opposed and argued that the probe in the case was at a crucial stage.
The court, while refusing interim bail, noted that the charges in the case include section 302 (murder), section 201 (destruction of evidence) and 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, which are serious offences.
"This court has found that on February 27 and 28, 2021 the deceased Mansukh Hiran was along with the applicant in Mumbai," the court said.
It added that Hiran's wife in her complaint has specifically taken Vaze's name.
"The informant (Hiran's wife) has made direct allegations against the applicant in the FIR. Hence, this court has come to the conclusion that the investigation is at initial stage," the court said.
It directed the investigating officer of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which is probing the case, to file an affidavit in reply to the plea, and posted it for hearing on March 19.
In his plea, Vaze said the FIR, registered by the ATS in connection with Hiran's death, has not named any person.
He termed the FIR as "baseless and without any motive", and said it was a result of a "witch-hunt".
He further claimed that at the time when Hiran went missing and was allegedly killed, he was at Dongri in south Mumbai.
Vaze filed the plea under section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in the Thane district sessions court.
Under this section, a person can seek bail if he or she is apprehending arrest in a case.
In his plea, Vaze said the complaint lodged by Hiran's wife is based on "bald suspicion and is without any basis or motive".
"It is trite law that a bald suspicion of the first informant regarding the commission of a crime cannot justify arrest of a citizen," the plea said.
Vaze, accused by Hiran's wife of involvement in her husband's suspicious death, was shunted out of the Mumbai crime branch on Wednesday.
Vaze's application further said that there is no incriminating material against him and that he has not even been named as accused in the case.
"Applicant (Vaze) is a resident of Thane for a long time. Even if he was a customer and acquaintance of the deceased, no motive can be attributed to the applicant from the bare reading of the FIR," it said.
The ATS, which is probing the case, has recorded Vaze's statement earlier this week.
Vaze, in the plea, said he was questioned extensively by senior officers of the ATS on March 8, during which he said that he was in south Mumbai at the relevant time (when Hiran was allegedly killed).
"On March 4 (entire day) the applicant was in South Mumbai. Thereafter during the intervening night between March 4 and 5, the applicant had been in Dongri area. The said fact is duly corroborated from the contemporaneous records such as Station Diary Entries of Dongri Police Station," the plea said.
"There is a virtual witch-hunt in news and social media casting speculative aspersion regarding the applicants' involvement on the basis of half-baked information without proper research and pre-judging his guilt or innocence," it added.
Vaze said he was cooperating with the investigation and hence should be protected from arrest.
Vaze, who was the crime branch's Assistant Police Inspector, has been transferred to the Citizen Facilitation Centre (CFC) unit of Mumbai police.
Meanwhile, in his new WhatsApp status message put on Saturday morning, Vaze said "the time to say goodbye to the world is coming closer".
"3rd March 2004. Fellow officers from the CID arrested me in a false case. That arrest inconclusive to date. Sensing the history is going to repeat. My fellow officers are on to falsely trap me. There's a slight difference in the scenario. Then probably I had 17 years of hope, patience, life and service too. Now I will have neither 17 years of further life nor service nor patience to live. I think the time to say goodbye to the world is coming closer," the status read.
On February 25, a Scorpio was found near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's house in south Mumbai with explosives and a threat letter inside.
Hiran, who was in possession of the SUV, had claimed that it had been stolen a week earlier, but the case got murky when he was found dead in a creek in Thane on March 5.
Hiran's wife had claimed that her husband had given the SUV to Vaze in November, which the officer returned in the first week of February.
During his questioning by the ATS, Vaze has denied using the SUV that was in possession of Hiran.