The Supreme Court on Monday granted three weeks interim bail to former Maharashtra police officer and encounter specialist Pradeep Rameshwar Sharma to take care of his ailing wife, who has to undergo a reversal of the Gastric Bypass surgery done earlier at Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital and Research Centre, with the National Investigation Agency, which is probing the case, sought to restrict the period of bail.

Granting three weeks interim bail to Pradeep Sharma, a vacation bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Rajesh Bindia asked Sharma to submit all the medical reports including the status of the treatment of his wife on the next date of hearing on June 26.

“Considering the reason for which interim bail is prayed for, we direct that the petitioner shall be released on interim bail on such conditions that the trial court may consider fit and proper, for a period of three weeks, to attend to his wife’s treatment,” the bench said in its order granting interim bail.

The bench further said that on June 26 Sharma “shall furnish a medical report disclosing therein the progress in the treatment of his wife.”

Sharma had sought interim bail for 12 weeks in connection with the treatment of his wife involving reversal of the Gastric Bypass surgery done earlier. He told the bench that his wife developed complications after a surgery and her condition was deteriorating with each passing day.

Initially the court had granted him four weeks interim bail but on a request by the NIA seeking to reduce the bail period, the court made it three weeks.

The top court had on May 18, issued notice on Sharma’s challenge to a Bombay High Court’s order refusing to grant him bail. Sharma had approached the High Court against the February 2022 order of a special NIA court denying him bail.

Sharma, along with police officers Daya Nayak, Vijay Salaskar and Ravindranath Angre was a member of the Mumbai police’s encounter squad that killed over 300 criminals in numerous encounters.

Pradeep Sharma is an accused in Antilia bomb scare case and the killing of businessman Mansukh Hiran. The Antilia bomb scare occurred on 25 February 2021, when a SUV containing 20 gelignite sticks was found outside the residence of Reliance Industries Limited, Chairman Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai. Businessman Hiran, who was in possession of the SUV, was found dead in a creek in neighbouring Thane on March 5 last year.

He has been accused of helping his former colleague Waze in eliminating Mansukh Hiran. Sharma was arrested in the case in June 2021 and has been in judicial custody since then.