Supreme Court restores murder accused’s bail, says individual liberty a ‘precious Constitutional right’

The accused, Kailash Kumar, was arrested on June 4, 2022 allegedly after he gave “an axe blow on the head of the complainant”. Charged under Section 307 (attempt to murder) under the IPC, Kumar spent 2 years in custody before he was granted bail by the Sessions Court on August 28, 2024.

The complainant challenged Kumar’s bail in the HC, which, on January 3, 2025, reversed the Sessions Court decision. Kumar then moved the top court.

The SC bench, in its order on February 20, 2025, said, “the High Court has not referred to any single act of the appellant, post grant of bail, which could give rise to formation of an opinion that any of the terms and conditions of bail have been violated by the appellant and, therefore, grant of bail warrants revocation/cancellation.

“Suffice to observe, liberty of an individual being a precious right under the Constitution, the Courts ought to be wary that such liberty is not lightly interfered,” the SC said.

The SC noted that the HC, while cancelling the bail, had relied on an earlier judgment of the SC which said: “While seized of an application for cancellation/revocation of bail, the considerations (illustrative, not exhaustive) which ought to weigh with the courts are whether: (i) the accused has misused the concession of liberty; (ii) he has been delaying the trial; (iii) he has been influencing/threatening the witnesses; (iv) he has been tampering evidence in any manner; and (v) there has been any supervening circumstance after grant of bail warranting a relook.”

The SC said that “despite quoting relevant passages from the decision… the High Court does not appear to have adverted to any of the relevant considerations in the present case; hence, the question of recording a satisfaction that bail granted should be cancelled does not arise. Instead, what the High Court did was to embark upon conducting a sort of a mini-trial at the stage of considering whether the bail should be cancelled or not.”