New Delhi: ‘Bail is the rule, jail an exception’ is a well-established legal principle in Indian criminal law derived from Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees personal liberty. But the Supreme Court said this week the principle is not an unconditional guarantee, when habitual offenders in financial crimes seek bail under its cover.
The top court Tuesday set aside a November 2025 Allahabad High Court order that had granted bail to a man accused of a multi-crore foodgrain scam, reinforcing the principle that while the law values personal freedom, it will not allow that freedom to be used as a tool for repeated social and economic harm.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K. Vinod Chandran said that “letting him loose on society would only pose a risk and hazard to others”. The court emphasised that in cases of a “pecuniary nature”, where innocent people are cheated of their hard-earned money by “conmen who make it their life’s pursuit to exploit and feast upon the gullibility of others”, the impact on the victim’s economic well-being must be weighed against the accused’s plea for bail.
The case began with an FIR in December 2023 in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district, in which complainant Rakesh Mittal alleged he was cheated of over Rs 6.5 crore in a money exchange after buying foodgrains from accused Ajay Pal Gupta.
Investigations revealed a sophisticated operation in which Gupta allegedly conspired with others using forged documents, including Aadhaar cards with fabricated addresses, to facilitate the crime. According to the state’s investigation, Gupta was no ordinary merchant; he was a “master-mind” and the “principal offender”, who operated under eight to 10 different aliases.
Before the top court, the state of Uttar Pradesh asserted that the high court had failed to take a holistic view of the matter while directing his release on bail.
When he was finally arrested in August 2025 after being a fugitive for 20 months, police had recovered three different Aadhaar cards and a PAN card from his possession, all featuring his picture, but different names and even different names of fathers.
Where the high court erred
The Allahabad High Court’s Lucknow Bench had granted Gupta bail on 12 November, 2025, primarily on the assumption that the offences were triable by a magistrate, and the grounds of “parity”, noting that his co-accused had already been released.
However, the Supreme Court did not agree with this reasoning.
The bench pointed out that the charges included Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant/banker/agent) and Section 467 (forgery of valuable security) of the IPC, both of which carry potential sentences of imprisonment for life.
The court noted that a magistrate’s power is generally limited to sentences of three to seven years, and the high court’s assumption that the case was triable by a magistrate was “premature” as the case could be committed to a Court of Sessions.
The bench criticised the high court for “blindly extending the parity principle” without considering the distinctive and “nefarious” features of his individual conduct.
A decisive factor for the bench was Gupta’s “career criminal” status. The court noted that Gupta had previously secured bail in a 2017 case, but chose to abscond, leading to a non-bailable warrant and the discovery that the surety he provided was fictitious. “The fact that respondent No. 1 (Gupta) was granted bail earlier but chose to indulge in the same activities once again… demonstrates that he is a career criminal and a menace to society”, the court observed.
In its explanatory analysis, the Supreme Court delved into the philosophy of liberty. While acknowledging that “liberty is a priceless treasure”, the court cautioned that it is not absolute. Drawing on judicial precedents, the order stated, “Liberty itself is the product of restraints… It dies when restraints are withdrawn.”
Gupta will now remain in jail as the state has been directed to expedite the trial.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)