Yesterday, On 26th October, The Supreme Court emphasized that bail should not be automatically denied in murder cases solely due to the nature of the charge. “It is an absolutely wrong concept in your mind that if a person is charged with murder, he has to remain in jail,” the Court remarked while granting a bail request. This observation underlines the judiciary’s stance on balancing individual rights with the presumption of innocence, signalling that each bail plea requires a nuanced and case-specific review.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court, On Friday, clarified that a murder charge alone does not automatically mandate that an accused must be denied bail pending trial.
A Division Bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih made this observation while granting bail to a man facing murder allegations.
Read Also: “Excessive Bail is No Bail”: Supreme Court
When the State counsel argued against bail due to the seriousness of the charges, the Court disagreed, noting, Justice Oka stated,
“It is an absolutely wrong concept in your mind that if a person is charged with murder, he has to remain in jail… We have to look [at] other circumstances as well,”
The Court granted bail, acknowledging that the accused had been in jail for over a year without any prior criminal record.
The case originates from October 2023, when the bail applicant was accused of being involved in a collision that resulted in a person’s death.
The accused contended that a road accident had been mischaracterized as murder and claimed he was falsely implicated in the charge.
He pointed out that the inquest report and witness statements indicated the death was accidental. This assertion was further supported by the post-mortem report of the deceased, as the applicant noted.
In August of this year, the Rajasthan High Court denied bail to the accused, citing the seriousness of the offense. Dissatisfied with this decision, he appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted him bail today.
Advocates Abhishek Gupta, Sumer Singh Ola, and Nikhil Kumar Singh represented the applicant-accused, while Additional Advocate General Sansriti Pathak and advocate S. Udaya Kumar Sagar appeared on behalf of the State.
This decision reflects a shift towards a more rights-focused approach to bail in India’s criminal justice system, where the presumption of innocence plays a vital role. The ruling sends a clear message that judicial authorities should avoid an overly rigid approach to bail in serious cases and instead conduct a nuanced review to ensure fairness in pre-trial detention.
The judgment reaffirms the Supreme Court’s commitment to upholding the rights of the accused, reinforcing that a murder charge alone should not automatically curtail an individual’s liberty in the absence of other compelling reasons to deny bail.
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