Appellants Bhola and Ram Singh have been convicted under Section 396, I.P.C. and sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life. Bhola has further been convicted under Section 412, I.P.C. and sentenced to ten years' rigorous imprisonment. They have applied for bail pending appeal.

2. Bail or jail ? That's the question. The argument is that till the appeal is finally decided by this court, the appellant be presumed to be innocent. Every citizen is presumed to be law-abiding 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.

3. But the presumption comes under cloud as soon as accusation is made and incriminating material comes before the investigating offi