JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:— "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread" lampooned Anatole France. The reality of this caricature of equal justice under the law, whereby the poor are priced out of their liberty in the justice market, is the grievance of the petitioner. His criminal appeal pends in this Court and he has obtained an order for bail in his favour "to the satisfaction of Chief Judicial Magistrate." The direction of this Court did not spell out the details of the bail, and so, the Magistrate ordered that a surety in a sum of Rs. 10,000/- be produced which, in actual impact, was a double denial of the bail benefit. For one thing the miserable mason, the petitioner before us, could not afford to procure that huge sum or manage a surety of sufficient prosperity. Affluents do not befriend indigents. For another; the Magistrate made an odd order refusing to accept the suretyship of the petitioners brother because he and his assets were in another district.

2. If mason and millionaire were treated alike, egregious inegality is an inevitability. Likewise, geographic allergy at the judi