Upset over the breach of its direction passed over a month ago in suo motu proceedings relating to the grant of anticipatory bail, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the High Court of Allahabad to send 2 judicial officers in Uttar Pradesh for training at the state judicial academy, relaying a clear message that such instances will not be tolerated.
The March 21 order of the Supreme Court passed in a batch of cases titled Satender Kumar Antil had said, “It is the duty of the high courts to ensure that the subordinate judiciary under their supervision follows the law of the land...”
The order was passed by a bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul & Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah while monitoring a series of past orders aimed at curbing the tendency of courts to direct custody of accused & lessening the burden of litigation in courts that follows as a result of their arrest.
One such order was of March 21, when the Court gave a specific direction to all high courts to ensure that courts below adopt a lenient approach towards accused who cooperated during investigation & were not arrested once during the probe by granting them anticipatory bail at the time when they appear in Court on being summoned during trial. Prior to this, in July last year, the court held that even regular bail should be granted to an accused who fulfil the twin criteria listed above & seek regular bail on being summoned.
By the March order, the court also put high courts on guard to deal with judges who defy the order by withdrawing judicial work & sending them for training at judicial academy. This was made practical by the Court on Tuesday as it was confronted with two orders alleging breach of March 21 order.
One order came from the sessions judge in Lucknow, passed on April 26, in which the judge in question rejected the anticipatory bail pleas of several accused in a matrimonial dispute despite being informed about the top court’s judgment. The accused parents in the case were not arrested throughout the investigation. The Lucknow court cited a specious ground saying “ample safeguards are available to applicants” while denying them anticipatory bail.
“Certainly the judge concerned meets the parameters for upgradation of skills at the judicial academy,” the Court said, as it brought this order to the lawyer appearing for the Allahabad HC.
“Despite our directions, much leaves to be desired,” the bench added.
The March 21 order of the Supreme Court passed in a batch of cases titled Satender Kumar Antil had said, “It is the duty of the high courts to ensure that the subordinate judiciary under their supervision follows the law of the land. If such orders are being passed by some magistrates, it may even require judicial work to be withdrawn & those magistrates to be sent to the judicial academies for upgradation of their skills for some time.”
Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, assisting the court as amicus curiae, showed another illustration of non-compliance by lower courts, again from Uttar Pradesh. The order was of April 18 passed by the special judge, Ghaziabad,handling anti-corruption cases relating to central bureau of investigation (CBI). The accused was a cancer patient who was denied anticipatory bail. The court order does not mention the names of the 2 Judges.
The Supreme Court directed the Allahabad HC to examine the case of this judicial officer too in the light of its order passed on March 21. There were other applications too mentioned before the Court pertaining to other states but since a copy of the same was not provided to Luthra, the bench requested applications to be routed through the amicus for proper consideration.
The bench failed to understand how it could bring about a change in the approach of judicial officers noting that such orders had a dual ramification of sending people to custody where they are not required to be so sent & creating further litigation by requiring the aggrieved parties to move higher courts.
“We are getting bail applications here (in Supreme Court) since what should be attended to at the district court level is not happening.” Luthra said that the directions of the top court would have a positive impact on reducing the case load on courts across all levels.
The bench further observed, “We have paucity of judges & on top of it, we have these matters flooding the court.” It was with this intention that in the same case (Satender Kumar Antil), the top court issued orders on July 12 last year to grant regular bail after completion of investigation by police.
Through the March order, the purpose sought to be achieved through the earlier order of July was reinforced as the top court said, “What we have enunciated qua bail would equally apply to anticipatory bail cases. Anticipatory bail after all is one of the species of a bail.”
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