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The Supreme Court has come to rescue of a man who was granted bail in a cheating and forgery case by the High Court but he continued to languish in jail for about three years due his failure to comply with a condition to deposit Rs 50 lakh.

A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar diluted the condition imposed by the High Court's Indore bench.

"The petitioner is aggrieved by the denial of bail. He is alleged to have committed offences under Sections 420, 467 and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)," the bench noted.

The court also pointed out impugned order even while granting bail imposed a condition that the petitioner should deposit Rs 50 lakh which he could not comply. 

As a consequence he has been incarcerated for the past nearly three years.

The court was hearing special leave petition filed by Mohanlal Maliwad against the High Court's orders which repeated declined to dilute the condition.

The bench allowed his plea also saying that the record disclosed that the charge-sheet has been filed and the trial has commenced. 

"In these circumstances, the petitioner is directed to be enlarged on bail without the condition imposed by the High Court," the bench said.

The applicant, on his part, stated he is a differently disabled person. He suffered paralytic attack four years back since then he is unable to perform his daily routine work without any assistance. 

The HC, in the case, rejected the repeated pleas made by him to dilute the condition in view of "nature and gravity of the case as, per the prosecution story, which reveals that the present applicant by abusing the authority of the office of Sarpanch granted lease of government land to 27 persons illegally and unauthorisedly without getting it diverted into Aabadi land". 

The petitioner claimed due to his poor financial condition, he is unable to arrange and deposit cash amount of Rs 50 lakh, and continued to languish in jail.

He further submitted that the applicant has no agricultural land and he has only a mud-house (kachcha ghar) for his residence purpose and his bank account contains very less amount.