Professional Sureties Have Become The Norm Since Criminal Courts Are Not Releasing Accused On Personal Bonds: Punjab & Haryana High Court

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has issued a slew of directions with respect to Aadhaar Authentication Services in all the court premises, observing that the practice of "professional sureties" is increasing because courts do not release accused persons on bail on personal bonds.

Justice Pankaj Jain said, "The professional sureties have become the norm as the genuine sureties are wary to encumber their property due to prolonged trials. Delay in trials is leading to a situation where genuine surety is being pushed out by professional surety. Just like it is famously said, “bad money keeps good money out of circulation”. The other reason for mushrooming of professional sureties is the practice being adopted by the criminal courts of insisting upon the sureties and not releasing accused on personal bonds."

The development came while hearing a batch of petitions pertaining to the persons who faked their identity while furnishing surety bonds pursuant to the bail orders passed by the Courts.

"The menace is widespread. These five bail applications before this Bench is testimony to the said fact. Repeatedly the Constitutional Courts have underlined necessity of separate law relating to bails. The chorus has only grown louder in recent times," the Court remarked.

Justice Jain issued the following directions:

(i) The appropriate Authorities i.e. the Secretaries of e-Governance Department of State of Punjab, State of Haryana as well as Union Territory, Chandigarh shall make appropriate application under Rule 4 of the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Rules, 2020 to the Secretary Ministry of Electronics and IT in the prescribed form requesting for Aadhaar Authentication Services in all the Court premises situated in their respective States/U.T. within 30 days from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order.

(ii) The said application once received by the Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, shall be considered favourably within a further period of 30 days. The necessary equipment to be provided to the Courts in terms of the applicable scheme with applicable contribution by the State and the Central Government will be provided within a further period of 30 days. Entire system shall be made operational including implementation of software and hardware within a period of 4 months from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order.

(iii) That the infrastructure for bio-metric verification of the Aadhaar Card at the Court premises shall be provided by the NIC, with the technical assistance of UIDAI.

Once the infrastructure is in place:

(iv) The Courts while accepting surety shall insist for complete details and identity document of surety including Aadhaar Card. Consent of the surety shall be obtained for verification of Aadhaar Card.

(v) The Magistrate concerned i.e. the Magistrate having jurisdiction over the local areas within the limits of the concerned station shall verify the Aadhaar Card of the accused in the case of personal bond and the Aadhaar Cards of the sureties as well in the case of surety bonds.

(vi) For first time accused facing prosecution qua offences punishable with imprisonment of less than 7 years under the Indian Penal Code, the Courts shall comply with guidelines issued by Supreme Court in Hussainara Khotoon's case ibid and shall not insist on sureties if parameters laid down in Para 4 of the said judgment are fulfilled on inquiry/verification of Aadhaar number of the accused.

(vii) The Periphery Surety Module which was planned with the provision of not only integration of Aadhaar which authenticates and identifies individual Aadhaar number holder but also immoveable property details which are tendered as surety by the party in the case, shall be fully implemented and utilized optimally. Whenever a person is to stand as surety the same shall be cross-checked with the database to satisfy w.r.t. the provisions of Section 441A of 1973 Code.

(viii) The Principal District Judge and the Chief Judicial Magistrates shall inspect the register of Sureties periodically, preferably after every three months.

The Court further directed the Registrar General, Punjab & Haryana High Court to issue necessary circulars to all the Courts in the States of Punjab, Haryana and U.T., Chandigarh.

Justice Jain was hearing a batch of bail petitions filed by persons accused of furnishing fake identities in bail bonds.

After hearing the submissions, the Court noted that "Pollutants in the form of professional sureties in the system were first noticed by Legal Aid Committee appointed by Govt. of Gujarat." The report of the Committee was quoted by the Supreme Court in the case of Moti Ram and others vs. State of M.P. (1978) observing as under :

"The evil of the bail system is that either the poor accused has to fall back on touts and professional sureties for providing bail or suffer pre-trial detention. Both these consequences are fraught with great hardship to the poor. In one case the poor accused is fleeced of his moneys by touts and professional sureties and sometimes has even to incur debts to make payment to them for securing his release; in the other he is deprived of his liberty without trial and conviction and this leads to grave consequences..."

The Parliament enacted Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial Other Subsidies Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 with an aim to provide good governance, efficient, transparent and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services, the expenditure for which is incurred from the Consolidated Fund of India to individuals residing in India through assigning of unique identity members to such individuals and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto, added the Court.

It noted that in most cases in the present bunch, the accused persons are facing allegations of having faked their Aadhaar Cards, "In order to make inquiry more prompt as contemplated under Section 441(4), verification of Aadhaar Cards/Aadhaar numbers needs to be seamless."

Justice Jain highlighted that taking cognizance of the menace of impersonation of sureties Supreme Court  in Rajesh Kumar Rathore vs. The State of Chhatisgarh  [Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No(s).4116/2021] issued a notice to UIDAI to explore the feasibility of evolving a mechanism to verify the genuineness of the surety.

The Court noted that a periphery module related to surety, developed by the Punjab & Haryana High Court, is in place and is currently running in all Courts of Punjab, Haryana and U.T., Chandigarh.

"The same needs to be and can be integrated for use of Aadhaar Authentication after being taken up by appropriate authority in the High Court/States with MeitY/UIDAI. NIC has expressed readiness to provide all technical assistance", added the Court.

While issuing a slew of directions to the State Governments and Chandigarh administration, the Court referred to Apex Court's decision in K.S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India, (2019) wherein "the usage of Aadhaar Card for investigation of crime and protection of revenue was held to be among the legitimate aims of the State."

In the light of the above, the plea was disposed of and the Court made the interim bail granted to the petitioners, absolute.

Ramesh Sharma, Advocate for the petitioner (CRM-M-49429-2023), Mr. B.R.Rana, Advocate

for the petitioner (CRM-M-53020-2023), Mr. Randeep Singh, Advocate for the petitioner (CRM-M-12759-2024), Mr. H.P.S.Ishar, Advocate for the petitioner (CRM-M-10199-2024), Mr. Sanyam Ketarpal, Advocate for the petitioner (CRM-M-19134-2024).

Mr. Ravinder Singh, AAG, Punjab.

Mr. Gaurav Bansal, DAG, Haryana.

Mr. Aditya Sanghi, Advocate Amicus Curiae.

Mr. Dheeraj Jain, Sr. Counsel with Mr. Sahil Garg, Advocate for NIC & UIDAI.

Title: Sharanjit Singh @ Suraj v. State of Punjab

2024 LiveLaw (PH) 185

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