New Delhi, February 13 In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Friday overturned a high court order granting anticipatory bail to a murder accused who had been on the run for more than six years.
The top court directed the accused to surrender before the trial court within four weeks and said he would be free to seek regular bail there.
A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Vijay Bishnoi held that allowing an absconder to benefit from the acquittal of co-accused persons sets a "bad precedent" and incentivizes the evasion of law.
"Therefore, it is a well-established principle that an absconder is not entitled to the relief of anticipatory bail. However, in certain exceptional cases, where, after examining the FIR, case diary, and other relevant materials, the court has prima facie reason to believe that no case has been made out against the absconding accused, then the power to grant anticipatory bail can be exercised in favour of the absconding accused," Justice Bishnoi said, who authored the judgment.
Referring to the facts of the case, the verdict termed the high court order "completely erroneous and perverse."
It stated that, according to the documents on record, no exceptional case was made out for the grant of anticipatory bail to the accused. The bench noted that even the State had supported the appellant's submission that the high court order granting pre-arrest bail should be set aside.
"However, it is not in dispute that the State has not filed any special leave petition (SLP) challenging the impugned order. We fail to understand why the respondent State, for reasons best known to it, has not filed an appeal before this court against the impugned order, when, in fact, it has fully supported the appellant/original complainant's case for setting aside the anticipatory bail granted to the accused, by way of its counter-affidavit," the bench noted.
It held that the high court had not rightly exercised its discretion to grant anticipatory bail as it was not a fit case in which the discretion could be exercised.
The bench said that the accused was a member of a mob and had not only absconded from the investigation but had also threatened to kill the injured victim, Shailendra alias Pintu, who was also a witness.
"In light of the above discussion, we set aside the impugned order dated January 19, 2024, and direct the accused to surrender before the concerned court within a period of four weeks from today," it said.
"The accused cannot be permitted to capitalize on the acquittal of the co-accused persons.... Especially when the accused had been absconding for about six years and had undermined the judicial process," the apex court said.
The judgment warned that granting pre-arrest bail to fugitives sends a damaging message to law-abiding citizens.
It said that such orders suggest that the co-accused, who diligently attended the trial, were "wrong" to do so and instead, the law "incentivizes people to evade the process of law with impunity".
However, the bench clarified that its observations are limited to the present proceedings and would not be construed as an opinion on the merits of the case.
The matter stems from a 2017 incident in Madhya Pradesh involving a violent clash between two political groups.
According to the prosecution, the accused was part of a mob that attacked the complainant's party with firearms, sticks, and swords.
The violence resulted in the death of one Bablu Chaudhary and left several people, including eyewitness Shailendra alias Pintu, with grievous injuries.
While several co-accused stood trial and were ultimately acquitted in June 2023, the respondent no. 2 (the son of co-accused Chandan Singh) was absconding since the incident took place on June 2, 2017.
Despite multiple rewards announced for his arrest and his previous bail applications being rejected by various courts, he remained untraceable for more than six years.
Following the acquittal of the other co-accused in 2023, the accused filed a third anticipatory bail application.
The High Court of Madhya Pradesh granted him the relief on January 19, 2024, primarily on the ground of "parity," noting that since the main trial had resulted in acquittals, there was no cogent material against the remaining accused.