Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, July 24: In light of his wife’s surgery, the Supreme Court on Monday increased the interim bail of former Mumbai Police officer Pradeep Sharma, who was detained in connection with the killing of businessman Mansukh Hiran and the Antilia bomb scare case, by two weeks.
However, a panel of Justices AS Bopanna and Bela M Trivedi declared that as the interim bail has been repeatedly extended, this is the final extension.
“If the surgery does not happen within this period, the petitioner (Pradeep Sharma) will have to surrender after two weeks. There will not be any more extensions of interim bail”, the bench told senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Sharma.
In the event that his wife’s surgery is not completed by then, Rohatgi declared he would surrender.
“This time surgery could not be conducted as her blood pressure was not stabilising”, he said.
The bench announced that the court would hear Sharma’s request for regular bail following his surrender.
Sharma has repeatedly asked for an extension of his temporary bail, alleging different reasons, said Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, who is representing the NIA.
Sharma was given a four-week extension on his interim bail on June 26 by the Supreme Court.
Sharma was given three weeks of interim bail by the top court on June 5 after it was noted that his wife must undergo surgery.
Sharma would be released on temporary bail subject to conditions imposed by the trial court, the top court said.
In response to Sharma’s appeal of a Bombay High Court decision that had denied him bail, the court gave notice on May 18.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) investigation into the case was criticised by the high court for its methods.
It had been highlighted that the co-conspirators who helped former police officer Sachin Waze install gelatin sticks in an SUV parked outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s home were not included in the NIA’s investigation.
An explosives-packed SUV was discovered on February 25, 2021, close to Ambani’s ‘Antilia’ residence in south Mumbai. The SUV’s owner, a businessman named Hiran, was discovered dead in a nearby Thane creek on March 5, 2021.
Sharma was accused of aiding his former partner Waze in killing Hiran. Sharma, along with police officers Daya Nayak, Vijay Salaskar and Ravindranath Angre, was a member of the Mumbai Police’s encounter unit that killed over 300 criminals in multiple encounters.
During the terror assault in Mumbai on November 26, Salaskar had passed away.
Sharma had petitioned the high court in an effort to overturn a ruling from a special NIA court that had rejected his bail request in February 2022. He was taken into custody in relation to the incident in June 2021.
