Bail – Denial – When not justified – Constitution of India – Article 21 – Right to speedy trial – Serious charges no ground to deny bail – Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 – SS.16, 43D – Penal Code, 1860 – SS. 489B, 489C – Fake counterfeit Indian currency notes seized from the appellantaccused, a foreign national – In custody as an under-trial prisoner for nine years – Bail denied:
Held: An accused or an undertrial has a fundamental right to speedy trial traceable to Article 21 – If the alleged offence is a serious one, it is all the more necessary for the prosecution to ensure that the trial is concluded expeditiously – When a trial gets prolonged, it is not open to the prosecution to oppose bail of the accusedundertrial on the ground that the charges are very serious – Bail cannot be denied only on the ground that the charges are very serious though there is no end in sight for the trial to conclude – In the present case, the appellant has been in custody for more than nine years – Trial likely to take considerable time as only two witnesses have been examined – Impugned order of the High Court set aside and quashed – Appellant granted bail subject to the conditions stipulated. [Paras 22, 34]
Penal Statutes – Statutory restrictions – Constitution of India – Article 21 – Infringement – Duty of constitutional court: Held: Right to life and personal liberty enshrined under Article
21 is overarching and sacrosanct – A constitutional court cannot be restrained from granting bail to an accused on account of restrictive statutory provisions in a penal statute if it finds that the right of the accused-undertrial under Article 21 has been infringed – In that event, such statutory restrictions would not come in the way – Even in the case of interpretation of a penal statute, howsoever stringent it may be, a constitutional court has to lean in favour of constitutionalism and the rule of law of which liberty is an intrinsic part – In the given facts of a particular case, a constitutional court may decline to grant bail – But it would be very wrong to say that under a particular statute, bail cannot be granted. [Para 32]
Bail – Denial of bail to an undertrial – Judgment in NIA v. Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali reported as [2019] 5 SCR 1060 not a precedent to deny bail to an undertrial:
Held: Decision in Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali has to be read and understood in the context in which it was rendered and not as a precedent to deny bail to an accused-undertrial suffering long incarceration with no end in sight of the criminal trial. [Para 28]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Divya Pandey. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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