Justice D K Deshmukh granted bail of Rs 1 lakh with one or two sureties of like amount.

Khan moved the high court late this afternoon after Additional Sessions Judge V K Deshpande rejected his application and plea for a stay on the order to enable him to move the high court or the Alibaug Sessions Court.

Khan moved the Sessions Court after the Alibaug Forest Department seized one blackbuck, two spotted deer and one peahen from his Panvel farmhouse on October 15, 1998.

While disposing of the application, Judge Deshpande observed that the Sessions Court, Mumbai, has no jurisdiction to decide the application. He also vacated his interim order restraining the police from arresting the accused. As the verdict was being pronounced, Khan, accompaniedby son Arbaaz, made a quiet exit from the court.

Opposing Khan's bail plea yesterday, Special Public Prosecutor R N Mishra had told the court that Khan's custody was essential so that the case could be investigated thoroughly. Mishra said since the offence had taken place at Panvel, the case should be tried at the Alibaug Sessions Court and not in the Mumbai Sessions Court. He said there was sufficient evidence to prove Khan's complicity in commission of the offence.

Khan's advocate Shyam Keswani however said the Bombay Sessions Court had the jurisdiction to entertain Khan's application and if the court did indeed feel this was not the case since the offence was committed outside its jurisdiction, the court could protect his client till he moves the appropriate court.

Keswani cited a ruling given by Justice Gadgil of the Bombay High Court in the case of N K Wagal vs the State of Maharashtra on the point of jurisdiction under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The judge, however, observedthat when the offence takes place at Panvel, it stands to reason that the Court of Sessions, Alibaug, has territorial jurisdiction to entertain the application. In other words, the Mumbai Sessions Court has no jurisdiction in this case, he added.

The judge also rapped officials of the Alibaug Forest Division, saying that despite the fact that an affidavit was filed by Deputy Conservator of Forests, Alibaug Division, R K Das, explaining the facts of the case, the Forest Department failed to produce the original case papers for the court's perusal.

The special public prosecutor however pleased helplessness, saying that despite instructing the Forest Department, the officials failed to produce the original papers.

``I record my strong disapproval over the callous approach of the department in a sensitive case like this and the concerned authorities should take a note of this,'' the judge observed.