Do Not Grant Regular Bail When Interim Anticipatory Bail Is Granted By Higher Courts And Matter Is Pending: SC To Trial Courts [Read Order]

The Supreme Court has directed Trial Courts to not grant regular bail to an accused, if he/she has already obtained an interim anticipatory bail by a superior Court and the matter is still pending before the higher Court.

“Once a regular bail is granted by a subordinate Court on the strength of the interim/pre-arrest bail granted by the superior Court, even if the superior Court is to dismiss the plea of anticipatory bail upon fuller consideration of the matter, the regular bail granted by the subordinate Court would continue to hold the field, rendering the ultimate rejection of the pre-arrest bail by the superior Court meaningless,” a Bench comprising Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Navin Sinha explained.

The Bench took note of the “predicament of the subordinate Judge in considering the prayer for regular bail and the impossibility of denial of such bail in the face of the pre-arrest bail granted by a higher forum”. It thereby observed that surrender and bail application by the accused in such cases is “nothing but an abuse of the process of law by the concerned accused”.

The Court was hearing a Special Leave Petition filed by one Ms. Rukmani Mahato, challenging an order passed in December, 2015, wherein the Jharkhand High Court had refused to grant her pre-arrest bail. Subsequent to this order, she was granted pre-arrest bail by the Apex Court in April last year. Thereafter, she had surrendered before the Trial Court, and was released on regular bail.

Livid that regular bail had been granted to Ms. Mahato, in disregard of the pendency of the SLP before it, the Apex Court had then sought an explanation from the Trial Court Judge. On consideration of this explanation, the Court noted that the order was issued by the Judge on a “misconstruction of this Court's order, which misconstruction was a bonafide mistake on the part of the judicial officer”.

It then proceeded to scrutinize the case at hand, a perusal of which revealed that it was regular practice for the accused to surrender before the Trial Court and seek regular bail immediately after the grant of interim pre-arrest bail by higher forums.

“If this is a practice that is prevailing in some of the subordinate Courts in the Country and we have had notice of several such cases, time has come to put the learned subordinate Courts in the country to notice that such a practice must be discontinued and consideration of regular bail applications upon surrender during the pendency of the application for pre-arrest bail before a superior Court must be discouraged,” the Court thereafter observed, directing a copy of the order to be forwarded to the Director of all Judicial Academies in the country, so that the judgment could be brought to the notice of all Judicial Officers exercising criminal jurisdiction in the States.

Thereafter, in the case at hand, the Court directed Ms. Mahato to surrender before the Trial Court within a fortnight, and clarified, “We also make it clear that once the accused is in custody, it will be open for her to move an application for regular bail which as and when moved will be considered on its own merits by the Court of competent jurisdiction.”