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Supreme Court grants interim bail to journalist Mahesh Langa in ED case, orders trial on day-to-day basis

The Supreme Court says that ‘no adjournment shall be taken or permitted' on the ground that proceedings are pending before the Gujarat High Court on Mahesh Langa's petition to quash the case against him.

3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Dec 15, 2025 04:00 PM IST

Journalist Mahesh Langa approached the Supreme Court after the Gujarat High Court dismissed his plea for bail. (Source: File)

The Supreme Court on Monday granted interim bail to journalist Mahesh Langa, who has been accused of extortion, in a money laundering case booked by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

A three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant also asked the trial court to conduct the trial in the cases against Langa on a day-to-day basis.

The bench also comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi asked Langa and his counsel to “to extend full cooperation to the special court and no adjournment shall be taken or permitted on the ground that quashing proceedings are pending before the High Court”. The bench pointed out that it was imposing such a condition as the Gujarat High Court had not granted any stay of the trial proceedings.

It asked him not to write or publish any article with respect to the allegations against him.

Langa was first arrested on October 7, 2024, in connection with a GST fraud case and subsequently in the money laundering case on February 20, 2025. The money laundering case arose from two FIRs lodged against him for alleged cheating.

Fixing the matter for hearing next on January 6, the Supreme Court also sought a status report from the Enforcement Directorate regarding compliance with the directions by Langa.

Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Enforcement Directorate, stoutly opposed the prayer for bail. He said, “Journalist extorting money (saying) that if you don’t pay, I will publish, is very, very serious.”

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Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for Langa, said, “Industrialists targeting journalists should not happen. Industrialist is targeting him.”

Mehta contended that Langa was delaying the trial by filing a quashing petition before the high court and then seeking adjournments before the trial court saying that the quashing petition is pending.

Sibal said the Enforcement Directorate was yet to supply all the documents that it was relying upon to prove its case. However, Mehta said that all the documents had been supplied to the other side.

But Sibal said that while the documents supplied showed that the amount involved was Rs 68 lakh, the Enforcement Directorate claimed before the trial court that it was Rs 1 crore.

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Mehta said the amount involved was more than Rs 1 crore.

Sibal then said, “Then give us those documents, or you cannot proceed. There is no supplementary complaint. Give me the documents on Rs 1 crore. You can’t have it both ways.”

Mehta said that even those documents had been supplied and that Langa had annexed them in the appeal filed in the Supreme Court.

Langa approached the Supreme Court after the Gujarat High Court dismissed his plea for bail.