Statutory provisions relating to bail: judicial trends

Abstract

Examining the scope of invoking article 21 of the Constitution, in a case, the Supreme Court observed that while it is true that Article 21 has not been incorporated in the Constitution to safeguard the offenders, provided however that, there is due sanction of law in the matter of having the petitioners in the custody.1 Bail or jail? That’s the question. Every citizen in presumed to be lawabiding and innocent. But when the court speaks of presumption of innocence of the accused, it only means to stress that the burden of proving guilt lies entirely on the prosecution and that strict proof must be given for holding that the accused is guilty. This is based on the principle that every citizen is entitled to live in liberty till he commits an offence; and nobody, including the state, should take away his liberty without establishing before a court of law that he had committed the offence and thus rendered himself disqualified for enjoying the liberties of a free citizen.2 For the purpose of granting bail offences have been classified into Bailable and non-bailable offences under Section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The basic distinction in these offences is that in bailable offences Bail can be claimed as a matter of right, whereas in non-bailable offences it is at the discretion of the Courts whether to grant bail or not. While granting bail in case of non-bailable offences various factors are to be taken into account by the Courts Today the horizon of Human Rights is expanding. At the same time, the crime rate is also increasing. Observing this, Supreme Court has been held that there is urgent need to make a balance between personal liberty and investigational powers of Police.