Guwahati, Aug. 16: The Supreme Court today granted bail to the deposed chairman of the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC), Rakesh Kumar Paul, who is the main accused in the cash-for-jobs scam in the commission.

The order was passed by a three-judge bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur, Prafulla C. Pant and Deepak Gupta in connection with the special leave to appeal (criminal) petition number 2176 of 2017 filed by Paul.

The Supreme Court concluded that he is entitled to "default bail" since he had already spent more than 90 days behind bars.

Paul has been in custody since his arrest on November 5 last year.

"The petitioner is held entitled to the grant of default bail on the facts and in the circumstances of this case. The trial judge should release him on default bail on such terms and conditions as may be reasonable," Justice Lokur said in the order.

"We also make it clear that this will not impact the arrest of the petitioner in any other case," he said.

Paul was arrested in connection with a case (number 936/16) registered at Dibrugarh police station under Sections 7 and 13 (1) (b) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and Sections 120B and 420 of the IPC, which were registered after the arrest of assistant engineer of the town and country planning department, Dibrugarh, Nabakanta Patir, on October 27 for taking bribe from a job aspirant.

Paul moved the Supreme Court after his bail applications were rejected by the special court, Assam, and Gauhati High Court.

The counsel for the state government has submitted that the chargesheet having been filed against Paul on January 24, the right of the petitioner to be now released on "default bail" gets "extinguished", but the apex court did not agree with this contention.

Since the Supreme Court has not barred police from arresting Paul in any other case, there was speculation that he could be arrested in some other case so as to prevent his release from jail as it is apprehended that he may tamper with evidence and influence witnesses as investigation of the case is continuing.

Special public prosecutor of this case Bijon Mahajan said: "This question should be put to the police as I am the special public prosecutor for the Dibrugarh police station case only and it is not in my knowledge whether any other case is pending against Paul."

A police source said that another case was registered against Paul at Dispur police station in January, based on a complaint lodged by a job aspirant that Paul had allegedly demanded and taken Rs 3 lakh from him in 2012 as the first instalment for a government job.

"But Paul was granted bail in the Dispur police station case by the special court on April 20 as the chargesheet could not be filed within 90 days," he said.