The Hon’ble Kerala High Court ruled that the default bail is a statutory right of an accused. The Court cannot deny statutory bail to an accused by imposing stringent conditions which cannot be complied by the accused. While imposing conditions in default bail, the Court can only impose such conditions to ensure that the accused will appear before the court concerned for trial and will also co-operate with the investigation. An accused in detention shall be released on bail after the period of detention mentioned in Section 167(2), if he is prepared to and furnish bail. This statutory right cannot be circumvented by imposing onerous conditions. Such arbitrary condition imposed while granting statutory bail amount to infringement of the fundamental right of the detenue under section 21 of the constitution of India.
Brief Facts:
The case of the Prosecution was that the Accused people were in possession of drugs in a hotel and hence, were arrested and produced before the Judicial Magistrate who ordered judicial custody.
The Petitioner (Accused) filed 2 bail applications which were dismissed. Since, the investigation was not completed within 60 days, another application was filed which was allowed subject to certain conditions.
One condition was that one of the sureties has to be a close relative and the other was that surities had to produce original title deeds of their properties.
Contentions of the Petitioner:
It was submitted that the Petitioner was poor and hence, had no land. Further, no relatives were willing to be surety. Therefore, Petitioner was in custody despite bail being granted to him.
Observations of the Court:
It was observed that bail was granted to the Petitioner.
It was opined that it is the statutory right of an accused to get released based on default bail. When default bail is granted, there cannot be any stringent conditions.
The Bench further ruled that the default bail is a statutory right of an accused. The Court cannot deny statutory bail to an accused by imposing stringent conditions which cannot be complied by the accused. While imposing conditions in default bail, the Court can only impose such conditions to ensure that the accused will appear before the court concerned for trial and will also co-operate with the investigation. An accused in detention shall be released on bail after the period of detention mentioned in Section 167(2), if he is prepared to and furnish bail. This statutory right cannot be circumvented by imposing onerous conditions. Such arbitrary condition imposed while granting statutory bail amount to infringement of the fundamental right of the detenue under section 21 of the constitution of India.
The decision of the Court:
Based on aforementioned reasons, the conditions on the bail to the extent arbitrary were set aside.
Case Title: ABC v. State of Kerala
Case No.: CRL.MC NO. 10253 OF 2023
Coram: Hon’ble Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan
Advocate for Petitioner: Advs. Arun Roy, Ashitha Ria Merin
Advocate for Respondent: Adv. Sri MP Prasanth
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