The right to default bail is a fundamental right that derives from Article 21 of the Constitution, a bench of Justices Krishna Murari and CT Ravikumar emphasized.
In its ruling in Ritu Chhabaria v. Union of India on Wednesday, the Supreme Court emphasized the significance of the Criminal Procedure Code’s (CrPC) right to default bail and declared that it could not be undermined by filing chargesheets before the investigation is finished.
The right to default bail is a fundamental right that derives from Article 21 of the Constitution, a bench of Justices Krishna Murari and CT Ravikumar emphasized.
Therefore, the Court emphasized, a chargesheet cannot be filed before an investigation is complete in order to deny the accused of default bail.
The following was said by the court:
-A chargesheet or prosecution complaint cannot be filed by an investigating agency prior to the conclusion of the investigation in a case in order to deny an arrested suspect his ability to post default bail in accordance with Section 167(2) of the CrPC.
Such a chargesheet would not revoke the option of default bail under Section 167(2) CrPC if it were submitted by the investigating authority without the investigation being finished first.
In such circumstances, the trial court is prohibited from keeping an arrested person in custody past the allotted time limit without first providing default bail.
The bench emphasized the significance attached to this procedural formality in order to prevent harassing or being “subject to unrestrained and arbitrary power of the state” for any accused.
“The remand and custody procedures, in their actual applications, produce a significant power imbalance between the investigating authority and the accused. There is no question in our minds that arrest and remand are absolutely essential for the investigation authority’s efficient operation in order to achieve justice, but it is also crucial to be aware of a power imbalance, the bench said.
The comments were made in a ruling that denied real estate developer Sanjay Chhabria’s default bail request after he was charged with defrauding Yes Bank.
His wife filed the petition with the highest court.
Under the guise of numerous supplementary chargesheets, it was noted that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would keep him on remand for longer than the legal maximum of 60 days.
The petitioner’s attorney claimed that the investigation was still ongoing and that the accused was not named in the complaint.
In February of this year, the Court granted the accused unconditional bail, which was made official by the court’s decision today.
The bench overruled the CBI’s initial objections regarding the maintainability of the claim. According to the Court, the Constitution entrusts it with the responsibility of defending both the civil liberties of individuals and society at large.
The ability to effectively negotiate with the government and uphold the power parity in the social contract between the people and the government are provided by these civil liberties, which are embodied in fundamental rights. This Court’s refusal to act on cases involving violations of fundamental rights based on technicalities will have a domino effect that will result in a broken social contract where the citizens of this nation will be subject to an arbitrary and unrestrained tyranny of the state.
The Law Commission of India first called attention to the practice of filing preliminary chargesheets in order to increase remand in its 14th Report, after which the CrPC was amended to include default bail.
The Court emphasized that a supplementary chargesheet that explicitly states that the investigation is still ongoing cannot be used to invalidate the right to default bail.
It was explained that failure to file a chargesheet or complaint within the allotted time frame would result in the statutory right to default bail under Section 167(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code.
The top court noted that the trial court in the current case missed the factual position when, instead of granting the accused default bail, it “mechanically accepted the incomplete chargesheets” to continue the remand.
The Investigating Agency and the trial court, as a result, disobeyed the law’s directive and acted in a way that was obviously arbitrary and in violation of the fundamental rights that the accused were guaranteed.
The petitioner was represented by attorneys Sujay Kantawala, Sarthak Sachdeva, and Santosh Sachin. The respondents were represented by Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj, attorneys Indira Bhakar, Vatsal Joshi, Vinayak Sharma, BK Satija, Pratyush Shrivastava, and Arvind Kumar Sharma.
Written By- Tushar Vashisth students of 3rd year BBA LLB at Chandigarh University
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