Courts Should Not Lightly Interfere With Personal Liberty : Supreme Court Sets Aside HC Order Cancelling Bail

The Supreme Court, while setting aside a High Court ruling cancelling bail of an accused under an attempt to murder charge, observed that an individual's liberty is a precious right under the Constitution, and courts should be cautious before interfering with it. Elaborating, the Court said that since there was no evidence showing that the accused's conduct after bail warranted deprivation of his liberty, the High Court had no valid reason to cancel the bail.

“Suffice to observe, liberty of an individual being a precious right under the Constitution, the Courts ought to be wary that such liberty is not lightly interfered. We are satisfied that there was no valid reason for the High Court to cancel the bail without there being any material to show, even prima facie, that conduct of the appellant post grant of bail has been such that he should be deprived of his liberty. There are also no allegations of influence being exerted or threat extended to the witnesses or of tampering the evidence. Material to demonstrate that dilatory tactics have been adopted to procrastinate the trial is also conspicuous by its absence.,” observed Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan.

In the present case, the appellant-accused was charged under Section 307 (attempt to murder) under the IPC. Since the trial was ongoing and out of 43 witnesses, 17 witnesses had been examined by the prosecution and the appellant was in jail for two years, he applied for bail. The same was granted; however, in appeal, the High Court cancelled the bail. Aggrieved by this, the appellant approached the Apex Court.

At the outset, the Court perused its decision in Ajwar v. Waseem and Anr. Therein, the Court had discussed certain factors to consider, while cancelling the bail. This included misusing liberty, influencing the witnesses, tampering with evidence, resorting to delaying tactics or if the order granting bail is perverse or illegal. The Court noted that the High Court did not consider any of these factors.

“Instead, what the High Court did was to embark upon conducting sort of a mini-trial at the stage of considering whether the bail should be cancelled or not. According to the High Court, presence of the appellant and the co-accused at the scene of occurrence and causing of injury to the complainant-PW1 by the appellant being undisputed and notwithstanding that the injury caused by him is simple, there was common intention for which Section 34 of the IPC is attracted.”

In view of this, the Court noted that the High Court erred and was unjustified in cancelling the bail. Thus, while setting aside the impugned judgment, the Court restored the order granting bail to the appellant. The Court also made it clear that it has not gone into the case's merits. Before parting, the Court said that the appellant is required to appear before the Trial Court on the dates fixed. Any failure on the appellant's part will lead to the cancellation of his bail. Accordingly, the appeal was allowed.

Appearance:

Petitioner: Mr. Rajiv Rai, Adv. Mr. Subhash Chandran K.R., AOR Ms. Krishna L R, Adv.

Respondent: :Mr. Vaibhav Srivastava, A.A.G. Ms. Sugandha Anand, AOR Mr. Amrinder Singh Rana, Adv. Mr. Vivek R. Mohanty, Adv. Mr. Ankit Anandraj Shah, AOR, Mr. Rahul Yadav, Adv. Mr. Vishwam Dwivedi, Adv.

Case Name: KAILASH KUMAR v. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH & ANR.

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 242

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