Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973:
s. 439 – Bail – In a murder case – Denied by Sessions Court – Allowed by High Court – Appeal to Supreme Court by complainant – Held: Though it may not be necessary to give categorical finding while granting or rejecting bail, yet it must appear from the order that court has applied its mind – In the present case High Court committed jurisdictional error as it did not assign any reason for granting the bail – In the facts of the case, it is not a fit case for grant of bail – Bail.
Allowing the appeals, the Court
HELD: 1. Though it may not be necessary to give categorical finding while granting or rejecting the bail for want of full evidence adduced by the prosecution as also by the defence at that stage, yet it must appear from a perusal of the order that the Court has applied its mind to the relevant facts in the light of the material filed by the prosecution at the time of consideration of bail application. It is unfortunate that neither the law laid down by this Court, nor the material filed by the prosecution was taken note of by the High Court while considering the grant of bail to the respondents. [Para 13] [325-C-D]
2. The High Court committed jurisdictional error in passing the impugned order because the High Court did not assign any reason whatsoever as to on what grounds, even though of a prima facie nature, it considered just and proper to grant bail to the respondents. [Para 12] [325-B]
3. Having perused the FIR and keeping in view the antecedents of the accused persons which are brought on record by the State in their counter affidavit and further keeping in view the manner in which the offence under Section 302 IPC was committed, the Court is prima facie of the view that this is not a fit case for grant of bail to the accused persons. These factors were relevant while considering the bail application and, they were not taken into consideration. [Para 15] [325-F-G]
4. Taking into consideration the entire scenario of the case, this was not a fit case for grant of bail to the respondents(accused persons) by the High Court. The Sessions Judge, was, therefore, right in rejecting the bail applications filed by the respondents. [Para 17] [326-B]
Ajay Kumar Sharma v. State of U.P. & Ors. (2005) 7 SCC 507 ; Lokesh Singh v. State of U.P. & Anr. (2008) 16 SCC 753 : [2008] 14 SCR 980 ;
Dataram Singh v. State of U.P. & Anr. (2018) 3 SCC
22 : [2018] 1 SCR 882 – relied on.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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