New Delhi: The Supreme Court has sought a response from a judge of the Allahabad High Court who dismissed over 40 bail applications on the same grounds in a single day.
The bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and C. T. Ravikumar expressed discontent at orders that stated the same reason for rejecting the anticipatory bail applications — ‘non-prosecution’.
Non-prosecution refers to the prosecution not being initiated in Court, and the apprehension of arrest being premature.
“This kind of approach in passing orders is not acceptable by this court at any cost,” the top court said on 21 October, while hearing a plea that anticipatory bail application was rejected without application of mind.
Anticipatory bail is applied for when an individual has reason to suspect that he may be arrested. It refers to a direction to release a person on bail before the person is arrested.
On 27 September, Justice Krishan Pahal of the Allahabad High Court rejected almost 45 anticipatory bail applications in ‘stereotyped’ on similar grounds.
Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Ashwani Bhardwaj placed before the Supreme Court a series of orders where bail pleas were dismissed on similar grounds.
Pre-arrest bail was refused in all such cases on the ground that there had been no prosecution at all and thus, such an order was not required.
In the present case, the Supreme Court allowed anticipatory bail, without going into the merits of the matter. On 28 October, it directed that there shall be ‘stay’ on arrest till further orders for the petitioner.
The SC bench will now hear the matter on 25 November.
It also directed the Registrar of the Allahabad HC to respond as to what reasons Justice Pahal had for passing the slew of orders rejecting pre-arrest bail.
The top court specifically sought a response on ‘what prevailed upon him [Justice Pahal]’ in passing the orders consistently in such a large number of matters, on the same day and based on the same ground.
This is important especially because the petitioner had approached the SC to protect his dignity under Article 21 (protection of life and personal liberty), it said.
Elaborating on the matter of personal liberty, advocate Pranav Sachdeva, who practises in the Supreme Court, said bail is granted “arbitrarily”. “Courts are unfortunately not bothered about protecting the liberty of citizens, which is their foremost duty. Only the rich and politically connected persons can manage bail while the masses suffer arbitrary incarceration by state authorities,” he told ThePrint.
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Not the first time
This is not the first time that such orders have come from the Allahabad High Court. Just last month, the CJI-designate Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had expressed alarm at the routine allowance of such bail applications.
In this case, Justice V.K. Singh had passed an order allowing bail. The order read, “Having heard arguments of learned counsel of both sides, nature of accusation and severity of punishment in case of conviction… I find it to be a case of bail.”
The accused mentioned the series of such orders in his plea and added that he must not be penalised for the high court failing to record adequate reasons while allowing the bail applications.
In the SC order, Justice Chandrachud had taken strong objection to the granting of bail without application of mind.
The top court said that it had considered various orders passed by the same judge (Justice Singh), and they ‘contain identical reasons’ as in the present case while allowing bail.
Terming the granting of bails in this manner unsatisfactory, Justice Chandrachud had reiterated the settled bail law in India.
The SC judge said that the Court, in deciding whether to grant bail, must mandatorily consider the seriousness and gravity of the crime, the role of the accused, likelihood of witness tampering, the likelihood of absconding and criminal antecedents.
“In successive orders, the judge granted bail containing the same sentence, purportedly of reasons,” Justice Chandrachud said, implying that there was no application of mind.
Facts of cases must be considered and not all circumstances will weigh in the same direction. Circumstances must be considered more than legal formulations, the CJI-designate had said, pointing to the need for well-reasoned orders.
Akshat Jain is a student of the National Law University, Delhi, and an intern with ThePrint.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
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