Clean Acquittal Of Accused After Long Undertrial Custody May Give Rise To Claim For Compensation : Supreme Court

A case of clean acquittal, where the accused had spent long years under custody as an undertrial, may give rise to a claim for compensation, observed the Supreme Court in the judgment granting bail to V Senthil Balaji in a money laundering case.

The Court observed that some day, the Constitutional Courts will have to address this "peculiar situation". A clean case of acquittal do not include cases where the witnesses turned hostile or faulty investigation.

A bench comprising Justices Abhay S Ok and Augustine George Masih observed :

"Some day, the courts, especially the Constitutional Courts, will have to take a call on a peculiar situation that arises in our justice delivery system. There are cases where clean acquittal is granted by the criminal courts to the accused after very long incarceration as an undertrial. When we say clean acquittal, we are excluding the cases where the witnesses have turned hostile or there is a bona fide defective investigation. In such cases of clean acquittal, crucial years in the life of the accused are lost. In a given case, it may amount to violation of rights of the accused under Article 21 of the Constitution which may give rise to a claim for compensation."

The bench made these observations in the context of its discussion that long incarceration as an undertrial should be considered as a ground for grant of bail even in cases under special statutes like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Other reports about the judgment can be read here.