Supreme Court Directs Petitioners Seeking Bail To Mandatorily Disclose Criminal Antecedents In Petitions

The Supreme Court has directed that the petitioners seeking regular bail or anticipatory bail must mandatorily disclose their criminal antecedents.

The synopsis of the petitions must specify if the petitioners have clean antecedents. Their involvement in any criminal case must be disclosed, with specific details about the stage of the proceedings. If false disclosures are made, then the petition will be dismissed, the Court warned.

A bench comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Manmohan passed the order after noting that in many cases, the criminal antecedents of the petitioners are not disclosed, resulting in the Court "being taken on a ride." The Court noted that in many such cases, notices are issued, and it is only when the State/Respondents appear that the criminal antecedents of the petitioners are revealed.

"This Court has shown leniency in the past but we think it is time that such state of affairs is not allowed to continue further," the Court said.

The Court therefore directed :

"We, accordingly, direct that henceforth each individual who approaches this Court with a Special Leave Petition (Criminal) challenging orders passed by the high courts/sessions courts declining prayers under Sections 438/439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 or under Sections 482/483, Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita shall mandatorily disclose in the 'SYNOPSIS' that either he is a man of clean antecedents or if he has knowledge of his involvement in any criminal case, he shall clearly indicate the same together with the stage that the proceedings, arising out of such case, have reached. Should the disclosure be found to be incorrect subsequently, that itself could be considered as a ground for dismissal of the special leave petition."

The Court acknowledged that the direction could result in inconvenience for some. However, since the earlier directions passed in Kulwinder Singh v. State of Punjab and Sheikh Bhola v. State of Bihar to elicit information correct information from parties seeking bail have not produced desired results, the Court said that it was constrained to pass the present directions.

"We have proceeded to make the aforesaid direction in the institutional interest so that proceedings before this Court are not taken lightly by those who choose to approach it and the process of law is not abused," the Court said.

The Court directed the Registry to bring these directions to the notice of every one.

Case : Munnesh v State of UP

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 389

Click here to read the order