Staying silent in interrogation not a breach of bail conditions: Mumbai court

The DRI said that Merchant was the mastermind of a gold smuggling racket in India to evade customs duty. On April 16, he was granted bail by a magistrate court. Among the conditions set for his bail were that Merchant was to remain present before the DRI for the ongoing probe.

The DRI sought cancellation of his bail claiming that he had not been cooperating during the investigation. Merchant’s lawyer, Sujay Kantawala, said that he had remained present before the DRI office 11 times and was available for the probe.

The court said that the accused had responded to some questions put forward to him with a “I have no comments on this” and “I choose to remain silent”.

“Merely because the respondent (Merchant) opted to remain silent by exercising the said right (right to remain silent), it cannot be considered as a breach of the bail condition when the applicant (DRI) attended the office of DRi and subjected himself to interrogation,” additional sessions judge S B Pawar said in his order on April 1. The detailed order was made available on Tuesday.

The lawyer submitted that on his release, while the DRI sought cancelling the bail in May 2024, Merchant was detained under Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA) for ten months. The court said that this preventive detention should be considered as a factor while deciding on the DRI’s plea.