Rajasthan High Court rebukes trial court for not mentioning date of arrest in bail order

The Rajasthan High Court recently criticized a trial court for failing to mention the 'date of arrest' of accused in a bail rejection order passed by it [Kamal Kishore v. State Of Rajasthan].

Justice Rajendra Prashad Soni flagged the "casual manner" in which the bail rejection order was passed by the trial court.

"Neither the date of the incident nor the date of arrest of the accused has been mentioned in the order," the Court said.

It added that the ‘date of arrest’ of accused is an integral part of a bail order which the trial court judge had overlooked.

"The date of arrest of accused is an integral and crucial part of a bail order but the Presiding Officer did not consider it appropriate to mention it in the order rejecting the bail. This omission is significant oversight," the Court added further.

The Court was dealing with the bail plea filed by two men booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for having been found in possession of 7 grams of contraband Smack and 7.1 kilograms of poppy-straw near Pushkar in Nagaur district of Rajasthan.

The Court after considering the submissions made before it granted bail to the petitioners, after finding that the recovered contraband weighed below the 'commercial quantity' which is required for an offence to qualify as a non-bailable one under the NDPS Act.

However, before parting with its order granting bail, the Court expressed its displeasure over the order passed by the trial court which had rejected the bail pleas of the two accused persons.

"Before parting with the case, this Court would like to express its grave concern regarding the casual manner in which the bail rejection order was passed by the trial court, particularly by a court presided over by a senior rank officer with considerable experience," the Court said.

It went on to assert that the accurate mentioning of dates of arrest and alleged incident is necessary to uphold legal precision and such lapses result in the lack of requisite judicial rigor and depth in the passed order, which falls short of acceptable standards.

The Court also flagged the issue of finding such inaccuracies in numerous orders produced before it.

Advocate Ananda Ram appeared for the petitioners while Public Prosecutor Shrawan Singh represented the State of Rajasthan.

[Read Order]