'Unwholesome': Kerala High Court Deletes Bail Condition Imposed On Migrant Labourers To Produce Sureties From State

The Kerala High Court last week deleted the condition imposed by a Judicial Magistrate of producing sureties from Kerala on the bail granted to a group of migrant labourers.

In a plea moved by the workers, Justice K. Haripal observed that it was unwholesome to insist them to produce sureties from the State itself while deleting the condition that sureties must belong to the State of Kerala.

A group of 174 people were accused of having formed an unlawful assembly in December 2021, wrongfully confining a police officer and members of the police team and assaulting and causing injuries to them with deadly weapons. It was also alleged that they set ablaze a police jeep and other gadgets of the police, causing a loss of Rs.12 lakhs. 

They were soon arrested and remanded to judicial custody.

Later, the Judicial First Class Magistrate released them on bail imposing stringent conditions.  Two of the conditions were as follows:  

• execute a bond for Rs.50,000/- each with two solvent sureties each and the two sureties must belong to the State of Kerala.
• The petitioners shall be released on bail only on a deposit of Rs.7,000/- each.

Challenging these two conditions, 20 migrant labourers approached the High Court. 

Advocates S. Rajeev, Sarath K.P, M.S Aneer and V. Vinay appearing for the petitioners submitted that it is illegal to insist that they should bring sureties from Kerala. Similarly, they argued that it is also unwholesome to impose a condition that they should deposit an amount of Rs.7,000/- each. 

However, Senior Public Prosecutor Hrithwik C.S submitted that the petitioners are migrant labourers, such conditions have been imposed to secure their presence during further proceedings.

The Court relied on the decisions in Motiram & Ors v. State of Madhya Pradesh [1978 KHC 178] and Valson v. State of Kerala [1984 KHC 246] to hold that it is unwholesome to insist the petitioners to produce sureties from the State itself. Therefore, the condition that sureties must belong to the State of Kerala was deleted. 

However, since the specific allegation against the accused was that they caused damage to the State to the tune of Rs.12 lakhs, it was held that they are liable to bear a portion of the damage sustained by the State. Therefore, the second condition was not deleted.

As such, the petition was partly allowed. 

Case Title: Sanjeev Hansda & Ors v. State of Kerala 

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Ker) 114

Click Here To Read/Download The Order