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1. The petitioner herein is facing trial under Sections 4, 5 and 8 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (in short the 'ITP Act') , Section 420/120B IPC and Section 3/4 of Maharashtra Control of organized Crime Act, 1999 (in short 'MACOCA'). There are certain persons along with the petitioner, who are accused in the aforesaid case. These accused persons, including the petitioner had moved applications for bail before the learned ASJ, who dismissed their applications vide order dated 23.5.2006. The petitioner has, therefore, preferred this application seeking his bail. Since the allegations on the basis of which the petitioner is facing trial under the aforesaid provisions are taken note of by the learned trial court in detail and there is no dispute over the same, I may refer to the same hereinafter.

So far as the bail application of accused Neeraj Chopra is concerned, the defense counsel has argued that provisions of MACOCA are not applicable to ITP Act, as, as per the definition of the organized crime in Section 2(e) MACOCA the continuing unlawful activity must be in respect of use of violence or intimidation or coercion or other unlawful means with the object of gaining pecuniary benefit or gaining undue economic or other advantage for himself or any other person. It is submitted that in the offence unde the ITP Act there is no use of violence or threat of violence of intimidation or coercion or any other act adjus dem genris. However, I do not agree with the contention of the defense counsel to the effect that as the phrase 'other unlawful means' mean any other unlawful activity even if it is not related to the use of violence or to threat of violence. In the present case the allegations against accused Neeraj Chopra are also serious in nature as he is also an associate of accused Kamaljit and facilitated him in running the prostitution racket which is admitted by him in his disclosure statement recorded Under Section 18 MACOCA. Besides during investigation it has come on record that he has been facing trial in four criminal cases since 16/1/96 till 11/8/96, 3 cases are under IPT Act and one case is Under Section 376/34 IPC. In his case also there is no reasonable ground to believe that he is not guilty of the alleged offence and is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.

8. Learned Counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, submitted that running of sex racket of such a magnitude in an organized way would fit into the definition of 'organized crime' and the main objective of MACOCA was to prevent orgainsed crimes. He further pointed out that there were 12 previous cases against the petitioner under ITP Act out of 15 cases filed against him, which would show that the petitioner was continuing to indulge in such an illegal activity in an orgainsed way and for involvement of the petitioner under MACOCA, he was not entitled to bail. He also submitted that even otherwise charges under ITP Act as well as IPC were also of very serious nature, which warranted dismissal of the application.

10. Even de hors the charge under MACOCA, there are serious allegations against the petitioner for which charges under ITP Act are also framed. Learned Counsel for the respondent had taken me through the record and also the allegations, note whereof has already been taken above. He also pointed out that as many as 15 cases were registered against the petitioner out of which 12 were under ITP Act. He also referred to the various calls made from one mobile phone to other between the co-accused inter se as well as between the accused persons and the girls involved in sex trade, who were recovered. He pointed out that these girls were also provided with mobile phones, who were residing in other cities and there were calls made by co-accused persons to those girls on those phones. He also referred to the statements of the accused persons recorded during investigation throwing light on the manner in which air ticket bookings for this girls used to be made and the modus of making payments to these girls adopted by the petitioner and other co-accused. It is, however, not necessary to go into these allegations in detail. Suffice it to state that the charges against the petitioner are of serious nature and I am, therefore, not inclined to grant bail to the petitioner. This petition is accordingly dismissed at this stage.