A.M. Badar, J.

Heard.

Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. Heard by consent.

2. By this appeal, the State is challenging the order dated 6th December 2016 passed by the learned Special Judge under the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOC Act for the sake of brevity) Pune, on Remand Application dated 6th December 2016 of Kondhwa Police Station, Pune, in C.R.No.477 of 2015, thereby rejecting the prayer for remand of respondent/accused to police custody and instead remanded her to judicial custody till 27th December 2016.

3. I have heard the learned APP appearing for the State. She vehemently argued that in Crime No.477 of 2015 in all 12 accused are implicated by now and the charge sheet against three of them was filed on 2nd June 2016. The learned APP further argued that two of absconding accused namely Rani Prabhakar Nair and Jyoti wife of Bapu @ Kumar Prabhakar Nair were traced out on 21st November 2016. When the Investigating Officer sought permission of the learned Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) for arresting those accused persons, the respondent/accused filed a false affidavit stating that proceedings are stayed by this court. The learned APP further argued that the impugned order refusing police custody remand is perverse. She pointed out the remand application and particularly grounds nos.1 to 7 raised in that application and contended that the learned Special Judge has failed to consider those grounds and rejected the application for police custody remand by holding that the respondent/accused is not at all booked for offences punishable under Sections 3(1)(i) or 3(1)(ii) of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOC Act). According to the learned APP, there was enough evidence to demonstrate that the respondent has committed the offence punishable under Section 3(3) of the MCOC Act, 1999, as she has harboured the offenders and got their release from police by filing false affidavit before the learned JMFC. The learned APP further drew my attention to statements of confidential witnesses nos.1 to 7 in order to demonstrate that respondent/accused is a member of an Organized Crime Syndicate. The learned APP further drew my attention to the transcript of the intercepted call between the respondent/accused and co-accused Bapu Nair to demonstrate that their conversation goes to show that the respondent/accused is a member of the Organized Crime Syndicate. It is further argued by the learned APP that there were about 24 calls by the respondent/accused to one of the confidential witnesses for extorting the amount and that witness had also called her for 32 times. In order to demonstrate that the Investigating Officer claimed police custody of the respondent/accused, even after the nature of the custody is changed to judicial custody, the learned APP placed reliance on judgments of this court in the matter of Iqbal Hasan Shaikh Ibrahim Kaskar v. State of Maharashtra reported in 2003 ALL MR (Cri) 1817. Reliance is also placed by the learned APP on confessional statements of co-accused Bapu Nair and Nilesh Basvant and that of Amit Jarande.

4. As against this, the learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of respondent/accused pointed out that the accusation against co-accused Rani Nair and Jyoti Nair are in respect of offences punishable under Section 4 of the MCOC Act which relates to possessing unaccountable wealth on behalf of members of Organized Crime Syndicate. To buttress this contention, reliance is placed on the remand application wherein it is mentioned that Section 4 of the said Act is added to the case diary of the crime as those co-accused have possessed unaccountable wealth on behalf of members of Organized Crime Syndicate. In this view of the matter, according to the learned senior counsel, prima facie, no offence punishable under Section 3(3) of the MCOC Act can be attracted against the respondent/accused as there is no harbouring of any 'member' of the Organized Crime Syndicate