Four accused in the Rs 200 crore extortion case tied to Sukesh Chandrasekhar have been granted bail by the Delhi High Court. The case dates back to 2021, when Delhi Police’s Special Cell first registered it under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.
Justice Prateek Jalan granted bail to Arun Muthu, Kamlesh Kothari, B Mohanraj and Sudhir, each on a bond of Rs 2.5 lakh along with two sureties.
Why the court decided to grant bail
A few things weighed on Justice Jalan’s mind here. For one, this case is genuinely massive — 24 accused, 403 witnesses — and he was blunt about what that means: there’s no realistic chance of this trial wrapping up anytime soon.
Given that, and looking specifically at what role the prosecution says Arun Muthu played, the court decided that keeping him locked up as an undertrial any longer just didn’t hold up.
Justice Jalan also used Muthu’s case to flag a bigger, thornier legal issue — one he’d already wrestled with before. It’s the tension between an undertrial’s constitutional right to liberty after years in jail, and the tougher bail restrictions written into special laws like UAPA, the NDPS Act, MCOCA, and PMLA. He pointed back to his own earlier rulings in the Leena Paulose and Deepak Ramnani cases, where he’d tackled the same question.
What Muthu is accused of doing
Notably, the court pointed out that Muthu isn’t accused of extorting anyone directly — he wasn’t involved in the actual acts of extortion against the complainant or other victims.
Instead, the prosecution’s case against him is about what happened after the money came in. He allegedly managed and planned how funds sent by Sukesh to Leena were used — handling accounting entries, arranging purchases of properties and luxury cars, sorting out parking for those vehicles, and even getting involved in producing a film. In return, he’s accused of taking commissions for this work, and of meeting regularly with both Leena and Sukesh (the latter during Sukesh’s parole periods).
Time already spent in custody mattered a lot
One detail the court leaned on heavily: Muthu has already been in custody for close to 4 years and 10 months. That’s significant given that the offence under MCOCA’s Section 3(4) carries a sentence ranging anywhere from five years to life.
Justice Jalan didn’t dodge his own earlier position either — in the Leena Paulose order, he’d said the delays in this case weren’t simply down to prosecution foot-dragging or the court sitting on its hands. But he was clear that this doesn’t mean every accused gets treated the same way; each person’s individual role still needs to be weighed on its own terms.
The case for bail
Muthu’s lawyers argued that he’s been in custody since his arrest on September 5, 2021 — nearly five years now — and that charges against him were only framed this June, through a Special Court order dated June 3, 2026.
They also pointed to the sheer scale of the paperwork: 403 witnesses cited, chargesheets running past 10,000 pages combined. And with co-accused Navas KI arrested only recently, a supplementary chargesheet is likely on the way too — meaning this case isn’t close to being done.
Put together, the defence argued, this amounts to a clear violation of Muthu’s Article 21 right to a speedy trial. Keeping him in custody any longer, they said, simply couldn’t be justified.
What the prosecution argued against bail
The prosecution pushed back hard. Senior advocate Sanjay Jain, along with Advocate Akhand Pratap Singh, argued that Muthu had a hands-on role in handling the extorted money in Chennai — working alongside other accused with full knowledge of what the crime syndicate was doing.
That, they said, goes beyond mere complicity. It puts him squarely within “continuing unlawful activity” as defined under MCOCA’s Section 2(1)(d) — which, in turn, points to actual membership in the crime syndicate under Section 3(4).
The prosecution also argued that Muthu, together with B Mohanraj and other Chennai-based co-accused, actively planned and carried out the handling of funds extorted and sent by Sukesh to Leena.