Mahindra granted conditional bail

Mahindra has been asked to submit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh with one solvent surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the court.

The court said it was granting bail without going into the merits of the appeal.

District and Sessions Judge Subhash Kakade heard the arguments by Mahindras lawyer Amit Desai and lawyers representing the CBI and the Bhopal Bar Association over two days before announcing his decision on Thursday.

Mahindra had argued that he had been granted bail by Madhya Pradesh HC and recently by the CJMs court after handing down the June 7 verdict and that he had never violated any bail condition.

Mahindras age,social standing and philanthropic activities were cited as grounds for bail in addition to the fact that he was non-executive chairman of Union Carbide when the disaster took place.

The CBI and the Bar Association had argued that bail was being sought for Mahindra as if it was a normal case,when it was a rarest of rare case.

The court allowed Bar Association as an intervener in the case after accepting its argument that thousands of its members were victims of the tragedy.

Bar Association President N C Das had argued that the court should keep in mind the public outrage after the June 7 verdict while granting bail to Mahindra. If bail is given,it will send a bad signal to the society, Das argued.