The Bombay high court will be hearing dismissed Mumbai police officer Sachin Vaze’s plea next week where he is seeking house custody instead of being kept in jail for post operative care. The high court directed the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to file an affidavit in response to the plea.
Advocate Sandesh Patil appearing for the National Investigating Agency (NIA) sought time to file a reply to Sachin Vaze’s plea.
Sachin Vaze was arrested by the NIA in the Antilia bomb scare and businessman Mansukh Hiran murder case in March this year and was later sent to judicial custody. Last month, Vaze was permitted by a sessions court to be admitted to a private hospital where he underwent bypass surgery.
Sachin Vaze, 52, later sought permission from the special NIA court to be placed under house arrest so that he could recuperate. Sachin Vaze’s plea stated that he had undergone complex cardiac surgery with five grafts and that he was more vulnerable to infections such as tuberculosis if he was sent back to Taloja jail.
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The plea said that house custody would enable him to recover in a safe, sterile and stress-free environment, albeit in custody. It added that if house arrest permission is granted, Vaze would be put in a separate room in his residence where complete seclusion would be maintained. He also sought permission to visit his hospital in Mumbai and meet his lawyer as per the jail manual while in house custody.
His lawyers cited Elgar Parishad accused Varavara Rao’s case, where the court had observed that ‘continued custody of the person under trial at the Taloja Central Prison is wholly incompatible with his health condition, because the hospital at the Taloja Central Prison is not adequately equipped to take care of the under trial, given his advanced age and various health conditions’. Varavara Rao, 82, was granted interim medical bail by the high court.
Sachin Vaze’s plea too stated that the Taloja prison was not the place for post-operative care.
The NIA had objected to his plea in lower court by stating that their investigation in the case would be hampered if Sachin Vaze is kept in house custody and he could influence witnesses. They had also stated that Sachin Vaze may abscond.
The special NIA court had last month rejected Sachin Vaze’s request, following which he approached the high court earlier this week.
The special NIA court, while refusing his house custody plea, had ordered that Sachin Vaze be kept in jail hospital for a month and that if there is a need, then he should be taken to civic run JJ hospital in south Mumbai.
At that time, Sachin Vaze had undergone Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery for his heart ailment. After surgery, Vaze was shifted out of the Intensive Care Unit on September 17 and his sutures were removed on September 27, after which he was to be discharged.
Vaze was moved out of the hospital at 4 am on October 6. So, during the hearing on Wednesday, his lawyers Sudip Pasbola, Rounak Naik and Aarti Kalekar said that they needed to amend their petition as Sachin Vaze was already transferred to prison.
Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/bombay-high-court-to-hear-sachin-vaze-s-plea-seeking-house-custody-next-week-nia-to-file-affidavit-1861553-2021-10-06
