Bail is the Rule and jail is an exception – Principle – Statutes with Stringent condition – Applicability of:
Held: The Court while deciding an application of bail falling under the provisions of Section 43D (5) is not required to conduct a minitrial – Only a prima facie case has to be established – The Court has to examine the material forming a part of the charge sheet to decide whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusations against the person applying for bail are prima facie true – While doing so, the court must take the charge sheet as it is – When a case is made out for a grant of bail, the Courts should not have any hesitation in granting bail – The allegations of the prosecution may be very serious – But, the duty of the Courts is to consider the case for grant of bail in accordance with the law – “Bail is the rule and jail is an exception” is a settled law – Even in cases of statutes where there are stringent conditions for the grant of bail, the same rule holds good with only a modification that the bail can be granted if the conditions in the statute are satisfied – The rule also means that once a case is made out for the grant of bail, the Court cannot decline to grant bail – If the Courts start denying bail in deserving cases, it will be a violation of the rights guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. [Para 15, 21]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Vidhi Thaker, Hony. Associate Editor (Verified by: Mr. Kanu Agrawal, Adv.). Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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