The Supreme Court today directed Christian Michel to approach the Delhi High Court regarding his appeal for grant of interim bail on the grounds of him being susceptible to the growing pandemic coronavirus in prison.
Michel in his bail plea submitted that his health condition is very critical, which makes his immune system weak and this could have serious effects on him.
The plea cited a previous order of the apex court where the court had addressed that social distancing be practiced in the prison and to that effect the court had asked for high level committees to be set up and determine prisoners who could be released on parole so as to avoid overcrowding in prisons in the wake of COVID-19.
In view of this Michel submitted that he needs to live in a better environment and he also argued that his further confinement would be violation of human rights.
Christian Michel was arrested by the ED in December 2018 and has been in custody ever since. He has applied for bail several times but all his applications were dismissed. Christian Michel is an alleged middleman who is being investigated by the ED as well as CBI in the VVIP Chopper Scam.
The CBI has alleged that there was a loss of 2666 crores to the exchequer in the VVIP Chopper deal and ED has alleged that Christian Michel received approximately 225 crores from Agusta Westland during the deal.