1. BASHARAT AHMAD SHAIKH, J.---A report under sections 419, 420, 467 468, 471 and 409, read with section 109 of the Penal Code as well as section 5(2) of the Anti-Corruption Act was registered on 1 1 th of January, 1996 in connection with defalcation of lacs of rupees in the Prime Minister's Secretariat. The petitioner is named as one of the accused persons. He obtained bail before arrest on 31st of March, 1997 from the Special Judge Anti-Corruption Muzaffarabad but ultimately it was not confirmed. He was taken into custody after the dismissal of his bail application on 8th of May; 1997. He subsequently moved the High Court but bail was declined to him. He has now filed a petition for leave to appeal in this Court which has been granted. The petitioner has moved this application for interim bail.
2. I have heard Raja Muhammad Hanif Khan, the learned counsel for the petitioner, in support of the application. It was vehemently contended by the petitioner's counsel that the prosecution has failed to put up a complete challan for a long time with a result that the trial Court has treated the incomplete challan as a final challan. He submitted that this indicated that the police have not been able to get any solid evidence in support of the allegations levelled against the petitioner. He submitted that there are in all thirteen persons in the case. Out of them one has been released on bail by the High Court while eleven accused persons are on bail before arrest. He stated that the bail matter of eleven accused persons mentioned above has not yet been finalised because the prosecution was taking adjournments. The learned counsel submitted that it was a normal practice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan that if leave is granted to an accused person he is admitted to interim bail. He relied on Serajul Haq v. The State (1968 SCM R 251), Amir Ahmad and another v. The State (1968 SCM R 1401(1)), Qurban Ali v. The State (1968 SCM R 1401(2)), Manzoor Hussain Shah v. The State (1969 SCM R 961), Falak Sher v. The State (1985 SCMR 1604(1)), Mian Muhammad Abdullah v. The State (1985 SCM R 1936).
3. The learned Advocate-General, Raja Shiraz Kayani, pointed out that the accused had absconded after the registration of the case and surrendered himself before the Special Judge Anti-Corruption fourteen months after the registration of the case. He submitted that this itself was a ground on which bail should be refused to the petitioner as was rightly done by the trial Court. On the question of delay being caused by the prosecution, he submitted that there is a statutory provision under which the petitioner would become entitled to automatic bail if there is delay of one year and therefore a delay of less than one year cannot be considered for granting bail to an accused person. The learned Advocate-General pointed out from the police record, which was available with him in the Court, that there was sufficient material available with the prosecution to connect the petitioner with the offences. He further submitted that in any case it was not a fit case for grant of interim bail.
4. I may first take up the case law cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner. In Serajul Haq's case the judgment cited by the petitioner's counsel is not the order by which interim bail was granted but is the judgment by which appeal was accepted and bail was granted. It is only mentioned in the judgment that Serajul Haq had already been released on bail. Qurban Ali's case also falls in the same category and, therefore, the reasons for grant of interim bail in both the cases are not available. In Amir Ahmad's case interim bail was granted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan to two accused persons out of a total of nine persons in a case under section 364/147 of the Penal Code on the ground that no overt act had been assigned to them. In Manzoor Hussain Shah's case the petitioner was a taxi driver in whose vehicle the accused persons escaped after the occurrence and interim bail was granted when it was found that the culprits entered the taxi driven by the petitioner at some distance from the spot on public road. While granting interim bail in Falak Sher's case no reasons were recorded; the simple order was that interim bail was being granted for a period of three weeks within which the case was ordered to be posted for hearing. Mian Muhammad Abdullah's case is not a case of grant of interim bail. By this order only the amount of bail was reduced.
5. The cases cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner do not show that it is a settled practice to grant interim bail to an accused person if leave is granted to.him. Interim bails in some of the cases mentioned above were granted in light of facts of those cases 'and not as a matter of practice. I may also observe that even if there is a practice of this nature it may not necessarily be followed by this Court because of the fact that, due to the huge volume of work in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, cases come up for hearing after a long time while in 'this Court appeals come up for hearing within a few months. In particular bail matters are decided within a few weeks.
6. In the present case, the learned Judge Anti-Corruption noted it as one of the grounds of refusing bail to the petitioner that he had absconded for a period of fourteen months for which he could not furnish any plausible explanation. It is also noted in the aforesaid order that the petitioner is the central figure in the alleged defalcation. These are negative factors for grant of interim bail. No reason is available in support of the request that the, petitioner may be enlarged on interim bail pending disposal of his appeal.
7. That being so, 1 rejects the application.