By Rana Ajit, IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ruled that courts need not deny anticipatory bail to a person merely because the police have filed a chargesheet indicting him for a crime.
A bench of Justice Tarun Chatterjee and Surinder Singh Nijjar gave the ruling while granting anticipatory bail to Jaipur’s Ravindra Saxena who faced allegations of cheating and forgery from a property dealer to whom he had promised to sell his two flats but sold them instead to someone else.
“We are of the considered opinion that the approach adopted by the Rajasthan High Court is wholly erroneous. Saxena’s plea for anticipatory bail has been rejected without considering his case and solely on the ground that the challan has now been presented,” said the apex court bench.
The apex court eventually granted bail to Saxena Dec 15. The ruling for the grant of bail was released Saturday evening.
Underlining the import of section 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which entitles a person facing the prospect of arrest for his alleged role in crime to anticipatory bail, the bench said: “The salutary provision was introduced to enable the court to prevent the deprivation of personal liberty. It cannot be permitted to be jettisoned on technicalities such as ‘the challan having been presented anticipatory bail cannot be granted’.”
Saxena had approached the apex court after his pleas for anticipatory bail were dismissed thrice, first by the Jaipur trial court and then twice by the Rajasthan High Court.
He faced allegations of cheating and forgery from Karan Singh, a property dealer and son of a former police officer for not selling his flats to him in 2007 despite signing a contract to do so.
While seeking bail from the apex court, Saxena’s counsel noted that Karan Singh accused not only Saxena but also his father and mother of cheating him.
He had also filed a civil suit in Jaipur lower courts to force Saxena to implement the contract. Saxena’s counsel said the criminal case against his client was filed to “blackmail him”.
The apex court bench also pulled up the high court for not taking all these facts into account and said: “In our opinion, the high court committed a serious error of law in not applying its mind to the facts and circumstances of this case. The high court is required to exercise its discretion upon examination of the facts and circumstances and to grant anticipatory bail if it thinks fit.”
(Rana Ajit can be contacted at [email protected])