Citation: Sharad Dayaram Shinde v. State of Maharashtra & Anr., Anticipatory Bail Application No. 168 of 2026, decided on 29.09.2026 |2026:BHC-AS:39924
Anticipatory bail is an extraordinary remedy and not to be granted routinely. A person who relies on forged or fabricated documents to get it, in a serious economic offence involving public money and alleged tampering with police records, is not entitled to it. Custodial interrogation can be justified where the accused’s version appears to be false and effective questioning needs him to be in custody.
The Bombay High Court has refused anticipatory bail to a trust chairman in a Rs 3.66 crore “ghost teachers” salary case, after finding that he had prima facie filed forged documents in support of his own application. The case, registered in Nashik Road police station, concerns about 96 teaching and non-teaching staff appointed in schools of the Nashik division, with about 125 accused. The police say the chairman of a Jalgaon trust was involved in the appointments of 32 staff in three of its schools. These staff were hired between 2022 and 2024 but shown as appointed from 2011-12, so they claimed arrears of salary worth about Rs 3.66 crore from the State. The police also say he took blank cheques from the staff and used them to move large amounts into his relatives’ accounts. His defence was that he had stopped being chairman in 2022 and relied on a “Change Report” showing another person as the new chairman. Justice Madhav J. Jamdar found that the certified copy from the Charity Commissioner’s office showed him still as chairman for 2022-27, and the Charity Commissioner’s own 2023 order recorded that he himself had reported the change. When asked to appear in court, he did not come, but sent another copy on WhatsApp which again showed the other person as chairman, and the court called it forged as well. The court also noted CCTV footage showing him for about 51 minutes in an ante-chamber of the police station, where the Deputy Director’s seized inward/outward register was taken and new entries were allegedly inserted with the help of a then senior police inspector, who is now an accused. Relying on the Supreme Court’s Anil Sharma ruling that custodial interrogation is more effective than questioning someone protected by pre-arrest bail, the court held that custody was needed and that anticipatory bail is an extraordinary remedy. It rejected the application and cancelled his interim protection. The court said these remarks are only prima facie, and the trial court must decide the case independently.