New Delhi, June 18
The Supreme Court today brought to the centrestage its ruling on the efficacy of the anticipatory bail and directed the Punjab and Haryana High Court to take it into consideration while deciding the pending petitions of accused persons in the Ludhiana City Centre scam accused, including former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on July 4.

Since the High Court had granted the anticipatory bails to most of the accused persons in an interim order, a Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P P Naolekar said till the High Court had decided the cases finally, it was not inclined to interfere in the matter and rejected Punjab Government’s plea in those cases for stay of the High Court orders.

But the apex court took cognizance of the Punjab Government’s appeal seeking cancellation of anticipatory bail to former Local Bodies Minister Jagjit Singh as the High Court’s order in his case was final and issued notice to him for filing a reply.

The Punjab Government’s appeal against grant of anticipatory bail to Amarinder Singh’s son Raninder Singh and their kin Raminder Singh had also been accepted by the apex court earlier on June 4 for hearing on the same ground and notices were issued to them. But today Raninder's case was adjourned to June 25 as notice could not be served on him.

While issuing notice in the Raninder case on June 4, the apex court had made it that it would examine the Punjab Government’s appeal against bail to him in the wake its 2005 ruling in the Adri Dharan Das case judgement.

In that judgement, the apex court had laid down that the anticipatory bail has to be granted for a “limited duration” and on expiry of it the matter should be left entirely to the trial court to deal with on appreciation of evidence emerging during the investigation.

Making this ruling a “benchmark” for deciding all the pending bail petitions in the city scam the cases by the High Court on July 4, the Bench said till then it was not inclined to interfere in any interim order because it was an “protection” given during the summer vacation.

In a way it came as a temporary relief till July 4 to Amarinder Singh, B I S Chahal and officials of Today Homes, whose petitions are yet to be decided by the High Court. But in the process, the apex court advanced the hearing of Aparinder’s petition before the High Court to July 4 instead of July 30 as fixed by it.

A total of nine special leave petitions (SLPs) of Punjab Government were listed for hearing today before the apex court, which made a clear distinction between the pending and decided matters to take cognizance of only the cases of the latter category. Four SLPs were against officials of Today Homes, two against Chahal, one each against Amarinder and his wife Parneet Kaur, Raninder and Raminder and Jagjit Singh.

While former Additional Advocate General Atul Nanda, appearing for Amarinder and Raninder saw today’s apex court order as a major relief to his clients, a battery of Punjab Government lawyers, led by state’s Advocate General H S Mattewal, saw the specific direction to High Court regarding applicability of the Dharn Das case ruling in anticipatory bails as a major victory to the government.