Taking serious objection to the conduct of RJD MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav both inside and outside the prison, the Supreme Court on Tuesday cancelled the bail granted to him by the Patna High Court in the case pertaining to the murder of trade union leader Ajit Sarkar.With this the Supreme court has cancelled his bail twice after he was directed to be released on bail by the High Court. The High Court itself has dismissed seven petitions by Yadav seeking bail in the 1998 murder case.A bench comprising Justice N. Santosh Hegde and Justice S.B. Sinha, while allowing the appeals filed by Sarkar’s brother Kalyan, and the cbi, said the prosecution has established a ‘‘prima facie case against the accused’’. Observing that many witnesses in the case were yet to be examined, the bench said ‘‘the conduct of the accused clearly indicates that enlarging him on bail may impede the progress of the trial’’.‘‘The high court was totally in error in enlarging the accused on bail,’’ the bench said while rejecting the argument of yadav’s counsel that his case was on a better footing than that of Kanchi seer Jayendra Saraswati, who was granted bail by the apex court.Terming the argument equating the Sankaracharya’s case with the case against him as an argument in ‘‘desperation’’, the bench said in both the cases the apex court has not declared any law but observed certain things peculiar to the facts and circumstances of the cases which could not be applied generally to all the cases.Noticing that the successive bail applications filed by Yadav had the same facts and legal grounds without pointing out any change therein, the bench said such applications should not be entertained and warned that if entertained it would lead to ‘‘forum hunting’’ by the accused.The court took strong exception to the manner in which the accused, despite a court order to surrender to the authorities, took his time to be taken into custody, the manner in which he used to hold public meetings inside the jail and even threatened top officials when they objected to such behaviour. After cancelling his bail, the Supreme Court also adjourned till February 1 the hearing on a plea for his shifting from Beur jail at Patna to a prison outside the state.Additional Solicitor General Amarendra Saran, who appeared for CBI, gave the names of six jails (four in TN) where Yadav could be lodged.
