High Court Denies Bail To ED Officer Arrested By Tamil Nadu DVAC For Allegedly Taking ₹20 Lakh Bribe

Justice V Sivagnanam of the Madurai Bench dismissed the bail plea moved by the officer.

Ankit was arrested earlier this month by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption. The DVAC had alleged that Ankit had demanded a sum of 3 crore rupees from one Dr Suresh Babu as a bribe to close the pending case against him and later scaled down the demand to Rs. 51 Lakh.

Out of this, Rs. 20 Lakh was allegedly paid on November 1, 2023, and it was alleged that Tiwari had continued to demand the balance amount from the de-facto complainant Babu, which led to him filing the complaint and Tiwari's subsequent arrest.

Tiwari had argued that as per Section 7(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, an officer could be arrested only for doing or forbearing to do any official act or forbearing from doing something in the exercise of an official position to favour someone. He submitted that in the present case, no case had been registered against the doctor nor any case was pending against him. Thus, he claimed that the initiation of criminal prosecution was with mala fides.

Challenging the bail plea, the State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah submitted that Ankit was arrested with due evidence. The prosecutor informed the court that several top officials of the Enforcement Directorate were involved in the bribery case and only further investigation could bring out more details.

The prosecution also informed the court that a crucial document was seized from Tiwari which contained details of 75 persons involved in the bribery case and it needed to be further investigated. It was informed that steps have been taken to examine the cell phone, laptop and other documents seized from Tiwari's residence and office. It was also informed that the voice recording and the video recording seized from the dashboard of the car showing Tiwari taking a bribe had to be analyzed.

Thus, claiming that enforcement officials were trying to protect Tiwari, the prosecution contended that granting bail would hamper the investigation.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Mad) 400

Case Title: Ankit Tiwari v State

Case No: Crl OP 22586 of 2023