New Delhi, July 3 -- The Supreme Court has held that an accused cannot claim the benefit of statutory or default bail merely because the investigating agency failed to file additional copies of the chargesheet for supply to the accused, as long as the chargesheet itself was filed before the court within the prescribed 60- or 90-day period.

In a ruling on Wednesday, a bench of justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh said that the right to default bail flows from the investigating agency's failure to complete the investigation and file the police report within the statutory period, and not from subsequent procedural lapses in supplying copies of the chargesheet.

"The non-filing of additional copies of the charge-sheet.would not vitiate...