'State' Is An Unnecessary Party To Anticipatory Bail Applications : Manipur High Court

The Manipur High Court has issued following directions to its registry regarding the filing of anticipatory applications.

a) The Registry should ensure that petition for anticipatory bail or regular bail should be appended with legible copies of complaint and the FIR registered against petitioner/accused. If the petitioner/ accused fails to enclose copies of the complaint and the FIR, the Registry should return the petition and only after due compliance, the petition should be numbered.

(b) In all anticipatory bail, the complainant should be made as party respondent for proper adjudication of the petition.

(c) The array of unnecessary respondents like the State, represented by Commissioner/Secretary (Home), Secretary to the Government Departments, Superintendents of Police and Deputy Superintendents of Police are to be avoided in the Anticipatory bail application and the Registry should not entertain the said applications.

(d) The Registry should ensure array of the Officer-in-Charge of the concerned Police Station/Investigating Authority and the complainant as parties to the petition for anticipatory bail and bail.

Justice M V Muralidharan issued these directives after he noticed that the accused failed to enclose a copy of the complaint along with the anticipatory bail petition.

"Filing of FIR though is not a condition precedent for exercising power under Section 438 Cr.P.C., to know the contents in the FIR and the complaint, both the complaint and the FIR are required to be annexed to the petition for anticipatory bail for proper adjudication of the petition. Mere averments set out in the petition are not enough for considering the petition for anticipatory bail. A readable copy of the complaint and the FIR ought to have been annexed to the petition for anticipatory bail so as to enable the Court to deal with the petition based on the allegations set out in the complaint and the FIR", the judge observed.

The court further observed that in a petition for grant of anticipatory bail, the State and the Superintendent of Police concerned are not required to be arrayed as parties.

"In fact, the State, represented by the concerned Department of the Government of Manipur and the concerned Superintendent of Police are unnecessary parties to the petition for anticipatory bail. On the other hand, for proper adjudication of the petition for anticipatory bail, if the complainant is impleaded as party respondent, particularly when the offences alleged against the accused involved under Sections 413/420/471 IPC, it would be useful for the Court to go through the contents of the complaint and accordingly to deal with the petition for anticipatory bail.", the court said.

Case details

Mayanglambam Prabha Devi vs State of Manipur | 2022 LiveLaw (Man) 11 | AB No. 29 of 2022 | 2 November 2022

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