IMPORTANT POINT
Bail – On the basis of charges framed, court is only required to ascertain nature of crime – Court has not to adjudicate on elements of crime or charges to find out its nature, extent and depth.

JUDGMENT

I.P. Mukerji, J.—

Introduction

When the bail application was moved before us on 10th January, 2023, the petitioner was already in custody for 135 days. Investigation was over and charge sheet had been filed. Although, further investigation was contemplated, but any supplementary charge sheet had not been submitted. One co-accused had been granted bail. A special leave petition challenging that bail order SLP (Criminal) Diary No. 33282 of 2022 (Amita Dani and Ors. vs. Shubhika Surana and Anr.), filed by the de-facto complainant was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 31st October, 2022.

2. On these facts on 10th January, 2023 we granted bail to the petitioner.

3. The State of West Bengal was not happy with this order. In fact, they felt aggrieved. They moved the Supreme Court with a special leave petition (Crl.) No. 1981 of 2023. Its appeal was allowed. The Supreme Court passed the following order on 3rd March, 2023, remanding the matter back to us after setting aside our order:—

1. “.........Accordingly, the impugned order passed by the High releasing the respondent on bail is hereby quashed and set aside and the matter is remitted back to the High Court to reconsider the bail application afresh, in accordance with law and on its own merits and in light of the observations made by this Court reproduced hereinabove.

The aforesaid exercise shall be completed within a period of three months from the date of receipt of present order. All the contentions and defences, which may be available to the respective parties are kept open, to be considered by the High Court which shall be dealt with and considered by the High Court in accordance with law and on its own merits and without in any way being influenced by the present order.

In view of the above, the present Appeal is accordingly allowed.”

4. Human liberty is most valuable to every civilized human being. Liberty includes the right and opportunity to free movement without unreasonable restrictions, the freedom to talk, to be talked to, to write, to be written to, to express views, be influenced by expression of views, to work, eat, rest, play, recreate and do activities becoming of a civilized human being, without interference from anybody or unreasonable interference from any state authority.

5. This principle is as old as the hills in all countries where there is rule of law as understood by the Anglo Saxon jurisprudence, that unless required to prevent commission of a crime, normally, a person cannot be detained in prison without trial by any state authority. The principle which flows alongside this constitutional principle is that a man is presumed to be innocent unless proved guilty and that a person is proved guilty of a criminal offence only if his guilt is proved beyond reasonable doubt. Such is the standard of proof required for conviction in a criminal trial. There is a saying that a thousand guilty persons may be acquitted by the court but let not a single innocent person be convicted.

6. Immediately after a cognizable offence is complained of, an investigation is started. The police starts an investigation under Sections 156 and 157 of the Code of Criminal Procedure visits the place of crime, makes an enquiry, makes search and seizure of articles involved in the crime. The police starts interrogation of persons to identify the accused or witnesses. Persons are summoned to give statements. They are recorded under Sections 161, 162 and 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The evidence to support the commission of the crime has to be quickly collected.

7. An exception to the above principle of no detention without trial is when after the occurrence of a cognizable offence, the alleged offenders need to be identified, interrogated and the offence investigated into to enable the prosecution to frame a charge against them. The offence complained of may be heinous like murder. The alleged offender may be of a very vicious nature. He may be inclined to commi