NEW DELHI: Former Health Minister, Satyendra Jain, who has been in custody since 2022 in a money laundering case, breathed a sigh of relief as the Supreme Court on Monday extended his interim medical bail for five weeks.
The bail was extended by a bench of Justices AS Bopanna and Bela M Trivedi, considering Senior Advocate AM Singhvi’s submission that Jain had undergone spinal surgery and thus needed six weeks to recover.
“Jain has had a very serious operation called microdiscectomy and partial laminectomy. He cannot even turn over on his side. Any literature will show that he will need six weeks’ time to recover. Your lordships may take the report from the people who have operated on him after that and list it accordingly,” Senior Advocate AM Singhvi had submitted before the bench.
However, the bench, for the time being, turned down the ED’s request to conduct an independent evaluation of his health, saying, “Now he has undergone an operation, any independent evaluation will say he is not well. After four weeks, if he has recovered, an independent evaluation will have some meaning.”
Maintaining their stance, ASG SV Raju for the probe agency said that the ED was not opposing the extension of bail but wanted to conduct an “independent evaluation.”
“Our independent evaluation will probably suggest that he does not require any hospitalization or bed rest,” Raju further said.
Notably, the Supreme Court had granted Jain six weeks of interim bail which was to remain in effect until July 11.
While allowing him to take treatment in a private hospital of his choice, the court had directed him not to influence the witnesses, leave GNCTD without court’s leave, and refrain from addressing any press conference or making any statement to the media on any issue during his bail.
Jain had challenged the Delhi High Court’s April 6 order, which refused to grant him bail, noting that it did not find any illegality in the rejection of his bail pleas by the trial court on November 17, 2022.
High Court Judge Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma had said, “In order to grant bail, there has to be substantial probable cause for first believing that the accused is not guilty of the offense."
Referring to the testimonies, the bench stated in its order, “Jain is the conceptualizer, visualizer, and executor of the entire operation, and he was aided and abetted by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain."
Former AAP leader in custody since May 2022 Jain was arrested by the ED in a money laundering case based on an FIR lodged by the CBI against the former AAP leader in 2017 under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
He is accused of having laundered money through four companies allegedly linked to him and has been in custody since May last year.
