The Supreme Court has ruled that hiding criminal antecedents while seeking bail is an abuse of judicial process, warranting rejection. Dismissing a murder accused’s plea, it held that applicants concealing pending or past cases deserve no indulgence whatsoever.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has come down heavily on accused persons who conceal their criminal background while seeking bail, declaring that suppression of material facts amounts to abuse of the judicial process and is sufficient reason by itself to reject bail.
Refusing bail to a murder accused who falsely asserted that he had no past criminal record, a bench comprising Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Alok Aradhe stressed that any litigant who withholds details of pending or past criminal cases cannot expect leniency from the apex court and is undeserving of a hearing on merits.
Also Read: Election Void for Non-Disclosure of Criminal Conviction: Supreme Court| Analysis
The bench said that,
“Failure to disclose past antecedents or withholding of information about the criminal cases pending against the petitioner/accused is a ground, in itself, to reject the prayer for grant of bail, as withholding of such relevant information would amount to abuse of process,”
The judgment was delivered while rejecting the Special Leave Petition filed by Firoz @ Farhu, who had sought bail in a murder case under Section 302 of the IPC. Although notice was initially issued, the Rajasthan government later informed the Court through a counter affidavit that the accused was involved in two other criminal matters one registered in June 2023, before the June 2024 murder case, and another filed in August 2024.
Despite this, the petitioner declared in his special leave petition filed on August 22, 2025, that he had ‘no antecedents’. Considering this concealment intentional and unjustifiable, the bench held that the accused attempted to mislead the Court to obtain discretionary relief and dismissed the petition solely on that basis.
In arriving at this conclusion, the Court referred to its April ruling in Munnesh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, where another bench expressed concern over what it described as an emerging pattern of accused persons hiding their criminal history when approaching the Court for bail or protection.
Quoting the earlier decision, the Court recalled how accused persons often reveal their criminal background only after the State submits its response, thereby misleading the Court at the initial stage.
The April bench had observed,
“The result is that this Court, being the apex court of the country, is being taken for a ride. This Court has shown leniency in the past but we think it is time that such state of affairs is not allowed to continue further,”.
The present ruling further strengthens the Supreme Court’s stance that honesty and full disclosure are essential when seeking discretionary relief such as bail. Earlier, on April 3, the Court had mandated that all petitioners seeking bail or anticipatory bail must clearly disclose their criminal antecedents in the synopsis section of their petitions.
In that matter, a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan rejected the bail plea of a murder accused who failed to reveal eight previous criminal cases, including a conviction. The Court reiterated that suppressing significant facts is by itself enough to dismiss a bail plea, regardless of its merits.
The Court has now directed that every future bail petition must explicitly mention whether the petitioner has a clean record, if not, full details of previous and pending cases along with their status must be disclosed. Any later discovery of inaccurate or incomplete disclosure, would be grounds to reject the petition.