New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Tuesday said when an undertrial is released his liberty is restored, which cannot be easily taken away for the asking, therefore, courts should stay bail orders only in exceptional circumstances and not “mechanically”.
A bench comprising justices Abhay S Oka and Justice Augustine George Masih said while granting a stay of an order of grant of bail, the court must record brief reasons for coming to a conclusion that the case was an exceptional one and a strong prima facie case is made out and the prima facie case must be of a very high standard.
“The power to grant an interim stay of operation of order to bail can be exercised only in exceptional cases when a very strong prima facie case of the existence of the grounds for cancellation of bail is made out”, said the bench.
The apex court made these observations while setting aside an order of the Delhi High Court, which stayed bail to an accused in a money laundering case.
The bench said when an application for cancellation of bail is filed, the high court or sessions court should be very slow in granting drastic interim relief of stay of the order granting bail.
The bench said while issuing notice on an application for cancellation of bail, without passing a drastic order of stay, if the facts so warrant, the high court can, by way of an interim order, impose additional bail conditions on the accused, which will ensure that the accused does not flee. “However, an order granting a stay to the operation of the order granting bail during the pendency of the application for cancellation of bail should be passed in very rare cases. The reason is that when an undertrial is ordered to be released on bail, his liberty is restored, which cannot be easily taken away for the asking. The undertrial is not a convict”, said Justice Oka, who authored the judgment on behalf of the bench.
Justice Oka said liberty granted to an accused under the order granting bail cannot be lightly and causally interfered with by mechanically granting an ex-parte order of stay of the bail order.
The bench said an ex-parte stay of the order granting bail, as a standard rule, should not be granted. It stressed that the power to grant an ex-parte interim stay of an order granting bail has to be exercised in very rare and exceptional cases where the situation demands the passing of such an order.
The bench said the court must record specific reasons why it concluded that it was a very rare and exceptional case where a very drastic order of ex-parte interim stay was warranted. “Moreover, since the issue involved is of the accused's right to liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution, if an ex-parte stay is granted, by issuing a short notice to the accused, the Court must immediately hear him on the continuation of the stay”, said the bench.
Justice Oka said, in the present case, the ex parte order of stay granted on 23rd June 2023, without considering the merits of the case, continued to operate for one year. He said whether such an approach violated the fundamental right to liberty of the appellant is a serious question we must ask ourselves. “Except for stating that this is a sorry state of affairs, we cannot say anything further as we must show restraint. Ultimately, in vacation, this Court granted a stay on 7th June 2024 to the order of stay, paving the way for the appellant's release on bail in terms of the order dated 17th June 2023, passed one year ago”, said Justice Oka.
The apex court delivered its verdict on a plea filed by Parvinder Singh Khurana, an accused in a money laundering case, who challenged the Delhi High Court's order of temporarily staying a bail order passed by the trial court. Khurana was granted bail by the trial court in a PMLA case on June 17 last year, but the high court stayed the order. The apex court stayed the high court order and restored Khurana's bail.
