Interpretation of Section 437 Cr.P.C regarding the trial Court's power to grant bail for offenses punishable with life imprisonment

Amar Dutt, J.

1. The petitioners filed Crl. Misc. No. 41125-M of 2000 seeking anticipatory bail in case F.I.R. No. 223 dated 7.10.2000 registered at Police Station, Division No. 5, Ludhiana under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 120-B with a direction that if petitioners surrender before the trial Court on or before 15.11.2000 at 10.00 A.M., the said Court will dispose of the bail application that may be filed by them together with any request for remand that may be made by the police as expeditiously as possible preferably on the same date.

2. The petitioners did not comply with the above order because according to them the offence under Section 467 IPC is punishable with life imprisonment and as such the trial Court, which in this case would be the Court of Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, would not be empowered to grant bail in view of the provisions of Section 437 Cr.P.C. and had instead on 30.11.2000 filed Crl. Misc. No. 41711 of 2000 seeking modification of the order dated 9.11.2000 on the ground that the petitioners in fact would not be entitled to avail the limited relief given by this Court while disposing of Crl. Misc. No. 41125-M of 2000.

3. Ordinarily, this application would have been disposed of by merely modifying the order dated 9.11.2000 and directing the petitioners to surrender before the Sessions Judge on any other date but since the question as to whether the Court of Judicial Magistrate Ist Class is entitled to grant bail in cases punishable with imprisonment for life, though it is the trial Court, would arise in a large number of cases, notice of this application was given to Advocate General, Punjab and arguments have been heard in detail.

4. The issue which is raised in the present case is that though the offences punishable with imprisonment for life are triable by the Court of Judicial Magistrate Ist Class, the difficulty which is being faced by the Courts, according to the counsel for the petitioners, arises out of the interpretation that they are placing on the provisions of Section 437 Cr.P.C. which spells out the power of Court other than the High Court or the Court of Sessions to admit a person accused of committing non-bailable offence on bail. The relevant portion of Section 437 Cr.P.C. reads as under :

"437(1). When any person accused of, or suspected of, the commission of any non-bailable offence is arrested or detained without warrant by an officer-in-charge of a police station or appears or is brought before a Court other than the High Court or Court of Session, he may be released on bail, but -

(i) such person shall not be so released if there appear reasonable grounds for believing that he has been guilty of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life."

5. A perusal of this Section indicates that the restriction on the power of the Court is in relation to the application of bail filed by a person in whose case there appears to be a reasonable ground for believing that he is guilty of an offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life. While analysing the scope of the words death or life imprisonment in Mohammed Eusoof v. Emperor, AIR 1926 Rang 51, the Court had held that the prohibition against granting bail is confined to cases where the sentence is either death or alternatively transportation for life and did not extend to offences punishable with transportation for life only. Their Lordships while coming to this conclusion had observed :

"It is difficult to see what principle, other than pure empiricism, should distinguish offences punishable with transportation for life from offences punishable with long terms of imprisonment; why, for instance, the detenu accused of lurking house trespass with a view to commit theft, for which the punishment is fourteen years imprisonment should be specially favoured as against the individual who has dishonestly received stolen property, knowing that it was obtained by dacoity, for which the punishment happens to be transportat