Dispose of bail pleas within two months: SC tells HCs, district courts

The Supreme Court has directed High Courts and trial courts across the country to decide bail and anticipatory bail applications within a short time frame, preferably within two months. It also asked High Courts to create systems to prevent the piling up of such cases, Livelaw reported on Saturday.

 

A bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan stressed that these applications deal directly with personal liberty and cannot remain pending for years, leaving applicants in uncertainty. “Applications concerning personal liberty cannot be kept pending for years,” the Court said, adding that long delays defeat the purpose of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and amount to denial of justice under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

 

 

The Court noted that while heavy case loads remain a challenge, matters affecting liberty must be given priority. “The grant or refusal of bail, anticipatory or otherwise, is ordinarily a straightforward exercise, turning on the facts of each case. There is no justification for deferring decisions and allowing a sword of Damocles to hang over the applicant’s head,” the bench observed.

 

The case before the Court involved an anticipatory bail plea filed in 2019, which remained pending in the High Court until 2025. Calling this practice unacceptable, the bench said it had “deprecated this practice.”

 

Directions issued by the Court

 

The Supreme Court laid down the following guidelines:

 

High Courts must ensure that bail and anticipatory bail applications before them or their subordinate courts are disposed of expeditiously, ideally within two months of filing, except when delay is caused by the parties.

 

High Courts should issue administrative directions to lower courts to prioritise liberty-related cases and avoid indefinite adjournments.

 

Investigating agencies must complete long-pending investigations quickly so neither the complainant nor the accused suffers due to delays.

 

High Courts, as the top judicial bodies in the states, must devise systems to prevent accumulation of bail matters. Such applications should not be left undecided for long, as this directly affects a citizen’s fundamental right to liberty.

 

The Court directed its registry to circulate the judgment to all High Courts for immediate compliance and administrative action.

 

Case background

 

The Bombay High Court had earlier rejected anticipatory bail pleas of three accused facing charges under IPC Sections 420, 463, 464, 465, 467, 468, 471 and 474 read with Section 34 for alleged forgery and illegal transfer of land. Two of the accused challenged the decision before the Supreme Court.

 

Although the Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s rejection of their pleas, it criticised the High Court for keeping the applications pending for six years. The Court dismissed the appeals but clarified that the accused could seek regular bail if they are arrested in the case.