ED Officials Attack: Kerala High Court Refuses To Cancel Bail Granted To Accused Harishkumar But Imposes New Condition

The Kerala High Court on Thursday (August 13) refused to cancel the bail granted to Harishkumar, the 9th accused in the crime registered pursuant to the attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials following a raid at the residence of Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan and his daughter on May 27.

A detailed order is awaited.

The development comes in a plea moved by the State seeking to cancel the bail granted to Harishkumar by the District and Sessions Court, Thiruvananthapuram.

Today, after hearing the parties, Justice C.S. Dias was of the view that the afore order (Annexure A3) need not be cancelled since the other accused in the case were already granted regular bail by the High Court.

"It is conceded by both sides that during the pendency of this petition, the other accused in the crime had filed bail applications before this Court and...this Court had enlarged the said accused persons on bail subject to conditions...As this Court has already enlarged the other accused in the crime on bail, I am of the definitive view that there is no necessity to interfere with...order passed by the bail court while exercising its discretionary powers," the judge opined.

The Court, however, added a new condition that was not included in the Sessions Court's order after taking note of the precedent laid down in Hemachandran M.T. alias Kamalesh and ors. v. Sub-Inspector of Police and Ors.

It noted that the afore condition was imposed in the order granting bail to the other accused and opined that the same can be incorporated against Harishkumar as well:

"since bail court has not incorporated a condition that the accused person should deposit Rs. 10,000 in view of the law laid down in the aforesaid decision, I am of the view that the...order can be confirmed but by incorporating the additional condition that the 1st respondent [Harishkumar] shall also deposit Rs. 10000 before the jurisdictional magistrate within a week from today."

The Court made it clear that all the other conditions imposed by the bail court are to be complied with.

Thus, it disposed of the State's plea. It also disposed of a connected case, which was filed by ED officer V. Sanath Reddy Polamreddy, who is the de facto complainant in the crime.

Case Nos: Crl.MC 5345/2026 and Crl.MC 5337/ 2026

Case Title: State of Kerala and Anr. v. Harishkumar and Anr. & connected case

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Ker) 444