Unseated law maker Masood gets bail

New Delhi, Feb 16 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday granted bail to Congress leader Rashid Masood, who became the first elected representative to be unseated after being convicted and sentenced in a criminal case.

A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C. Pant granted bail to 68-year-old former Rajya Sabha member who had invoked health grounds and his acute diabetic condition for getting bail.

Masood, who was the first lawmaker to lose his seat in the legislature in the wake of 2013 apex court verdict denying representatives the breathing time to appeal against their conviction and sentencing, had challenged the Novr 14, 2014 Delhi High Court order declining his plea for bail.

He was convicted by a Delhi court in September 2013 for illegally allowing undeserving candidates to be admitted against the MBBS seats meant for the Tripura in the medical colleges under the central quota in 1990. He was then health minister in the V.P.Singh-led National Front government.

Before being bailed out Monday, Masood had spent about one and half years in jail. He has also challenged, before the Delhi High Court, the trial court verdict convicting him for medical seats allocation scam and sentencing him to four year jail term.

The apex court by its July 10, 2013, verdict had held ultra vires the sub-section (4) of Section 8 of the Representation of People Act, which protected elected representatives from being unseated instantly as it gave them three months breathing period to appeal against their conviction and sentencing.