The Supreme Court has stated that denial of a bail hearing is a violation of an accused person’s rights, and that during the pandemic, at least half of the judges should sit in high courts on alternate days to attend to matters of urgency and individual liberty.
Due to a lack of judges, cases involving the accused’s life and liberty were not being listed for hearing in some of the high courts, according to a bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian.
“Under the prevailing pandemic, at least half of the judges should sit on alternative days so that hearing is accorded to the person in distress. Non-listing of application for regular bail, irrespective of seriousness or lack thereof, of the offences attributed to the accused, impinges upon the liberty of the person in custody,” said the bench in its order on Tuesday.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Goraya-based industrialist Chuni Lal Gaba, who was named in a money laundering case linked to the 6,000-crore synthetic drug racket orchestrated by former Punjab deputy superintendent of police Jagdish Bhola.
Gaba’s bail application has been pending before the Punjab and Haryana high court since February 28, 2020, according to senior advocate Vikram Chaudhri, who represents him before the bench. The petition was filed in the Supreme Court in response to a high court order on April 29 that denied Gaba’s request for an expedited hearing on his bail plea.
Despite the fact that his client was 73 and suffering from a variety of ailments, Chaudhry said the high court took no time in considering his bail request, and the case has now been rescheduled for August 21 after nearly 20 adjournments since February 2020.
At this, the bench said it was “shocked” to come across the facts of the case. “Normally, we do not interfere with an interim order passed by the high court but we are constrained to pass the present order as we are shocked to see that the bail application under Section 439 CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code) is not being listed for hearing for more than one year. The accused has a right to hearing of his application for bail. In fact, the denial of hearing is an infringement of right and liberty assured to an accused,” the order stated.
The bench went on to say that at least half of the judges should sit on alternate days during the week to ensure that people could access the justice system in emergency situations.
The registrar general of the Punjab and Haryana high court will bring the Supreme Court’s order to the competent authority’s attention as soon as possible, according to the statement.
