(1) Petitioners by this Petition are seeking an order directing that the Petitioners may be released on bail on furnishing cash bail under section 445 of the Criminal Procedure Code without sureties or alternatively they may be released on bail on their own bonds without sureties.

(2) During pendency of this Petition, Petitioners were released on bail and, therefore, this Petition practically has become infructuous. Shri Adhik Shirodkar, the learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the Petitioners, however, urged that though this Petition has become infructuous, this Court may consider difficulties faced by the Petitioners who are residents of other cities and who are not in a position to obtain local sureties and, secondly, though there is a provision that the accused can be released on furnishing cash bail initially, such orders are not passed, with the result the Petitioners who were high ranking officers of a Private Limited Company had to remain in bail though bail was granted and the sureties could not be furnished since the documents for proving that they were solvent sureties were forwarded to the Tahsildar's Office and, as a result, the said orders were not received in time.

In the present case, brief facts are that a private complaint was filed in the Court of JMFC at Thane by one Mr. Tolia. The learned JMFC passed an order directing investigation under section 156(3). The statement of Mr. Tolia was recorded and the three representatives of M/s Mitra S.K. Pvt. Ltd. were arrested at Vizag on 13/11/2009. They were produced before the 10th JMFC, Thane and were remanded to Police Custody till 21/11/2009. The bail application filed by them was rejected by the JMFC on 26/11/2009. Against this order, application for bail was filed in the Sessions Court which was allowed by the order dated 14/12/2009 and they were released on bail with a direction that they should execute P.R. Bond of Rs 50,000/- with one or two solvent sureties. On 19/12/2009, sureties were furnished before the JMFC, Thane. He, however, forwarded the documents to Tahsildar's Office at Malegaon and Solapur for verification. In view of this, though the bail was granted on 14/12/2009, the said three accused had to remain in custody till the verification report was received by the office and, thereafter on 4/1/2010 and 6/1/2010, they were released on bail.

(3) On 12/01/2010, anticipatory bail application was filed by Petitioner No.2, Petitioner No.3 and Petitioner No.4 in the Court of Sessions at Thane. On 25/01/2010, anticipatory bail application was allowed by the Court and the order remained in force till 15/02/2010. Application for extension of anticipatory bail was filed. However, it was orally rejected by the Court on 10/02/2010. On 15/02/2010, another application for extension was made. However, this was also rejected by the Court. On 16/02/2010, Criminal Writ Petition was filed in this Court, seeking permission to furnish cash bail in lieu of surety. On 22/02/2010, an ad-interim order was passed by this Court allowing the prayer for cash bail and notice was made returnable on 08/03/2010. In the meantime, on 05/03/2010, regular bail application was filed and it was allowed and the Petitioners were released on bail.

(4) The learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the Respondents submitted that this Petition has become infructuous and therefore it is liable to be dismissed.

Mr. Adhik Shirodkar, the learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the Petitioners submitted that though this Petition, technically, has become infructuous, the points raised in this Petition are required to be decided. He submitted that three representatives of the Company M/s Mitra S.K. Pvt. Ltd., though they were released on bail by order dated 14/12/2009, they had to remain in jail only because solvent sureties could not be verified by he Tahsildar and, as such, they remained in jail for a period of 19 days. He submitted that though there is a provision for granting c