The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain an application of default bail moved by former Uttar Pradesh Minister Gayatri Prajapati. The Division Bench of Justices K.M. Joseph and P. Narasimha refused to entertain the plea of default bail, stating the appropriate remedy would lie before the Allahabad High Court.
Senior Advocate Vikram Chaudhri, who appeared for Prajapati, requested the Bench to issue an order directing the Allahabad High Court to decide the bail application on an urgent basis since there is a long pendency of cases in the High Court. The Bench said that if an application for seeking default bail is filed then the High Court will take it up with the highest level of expediency since it relates to personal liberty.
In September this year, a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Lucknow had issued summons to Prajapati to face trial in a money laundering case linked to possession of alleged disproportionate assets, alleging that Prajapati was the beneficiary of assets acquired out of proceeds of crime. In April this year, the Enforcement Directorate had filed a chargesheet under various PMLA sections against Prajapati.
Later, the Special Court in Lucknow had declined to grant default bail to Prajapati and granted his custody to the ED.
Prajapati and two others had been recently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Special MP MLA Court in Lucknow in the Chitrakoot minor gangrape case. The case had been lodged after the Supreme Court’s intervention in 2017.