Supreme Court grants anticipatory bail to Congress leader Pawan Khera

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he Supreme Court has granted anticipatory bail to Congress leader Pawan Khera in a case registered against him for making allegations that Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma's wife possessed multiple passports and undisclosed properties abroad. A bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and AS Chandurkar granted the pre-arrest bail to Khera subject to certain conditions, an order uploaded on Friday said. The court had earlier on Thursday reserved its order on the matter. "The appellant (Pawan Khera) is directed to be released on anticipatory bail in the event of his arrest in the Crime Branch P.S. Case No. 04/2026 and on such reasonable terms and conditions which may be put by the Investigating Officer as deemed fit," it said.

The bench directed Khera to cooperate in the investigation and to appear before the police station as and when required and intimated and he shall not influence or tamper with any of the evidence during pendency of the investigation or trial in the case. It directed Khera to not leave India without prior leave of the competent court and said if the trial court deems it fit to impose some other conditions, it has the discretion to do the needful and put those conditions during trial. While allowing the appeal of Khera against April 24 order of the Gauhati High Court, the bench said, "In our view, the observations as made by the high court in the order impugned is not based on correct appreciation of all the material which has been placed on record and appears to be erroneous, in particular shifting the burden on the accused." The top court said without alleging any offence under Section 339 of BNS and merely on the basis of a statement made by the advocate general, observations made regarding Section 339 of BNS do not appear to be correct. Following the allegations, the CM's wife, Riniki Bhuyan Sharma, filed criminal cases against Khera and others at the Guwahati Crime Branch police station under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The Telangana High Court had earlier granted Khera a seven-day transit anticipatory bail, but Assam Police moved the Supreme Court against it. The apex court passed an interim order to stay the grant of anticipatory transit bail and asked Khera to approach the Gauhati High Court.