Pendency of appeal as ground for bail: Madhya Pradesh HC order challenged in Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today issued notice to the State of Madhya Pradesh while hearing a plea challenging the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s Indore bench order which held that pendency of an appeal cannot be a ground for granting bail..The plea filed by NGO Lawyers for Justice, represented through Advocate Navin Prakash came up for hearing before the Bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Abdul Nazeer. The Court has also asked the Registrar of the High Court to furnish data related to pending appeals..This petition stems from a judgement of a full bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Dashrath V. State of MP, which held that the view taken by the Division Bench of the High Court in Raghuwar Singh’s case does not reflect the correct position of law..The petition further states that the High Court had failed to correctly appreciate the reasoning of the judgment in Raghuwar Singh’s case, which held that bail can be granted in cases where there is no possibility of final hearing of appeals..“……when substantial part of the sentence is suffered with no foreseeable hope of final hearing in the appeal in near future, the factor of merit involving gravity of offence, nature of commission of offence and quality of evidence on record, takes a backseat and instead, the factors pertaining to the post-conviction period, i.e., period of custody, post-conviction behaviour, instances of misuse of bail, age, possibility of hearing of the appeal in near future and efforts made by the counsel for convict to get the appeal heard, assume prominence and primacy.”.The petition further states that in some cases, the convict-appellants have remained in incarceration for a period almost equal to the period of sentence and their appeals have been either withdrawn or disposed of, having become infructuous..It also contends that the judgement in Raghuvar Singh’s (supra) case did not need any reconsideration because the views expressed in it are legally tenable and in conformity with what has been held in Kashmira Singh vs State of Punjab..“For that unless operation of the impugned judgment is stayed, a large number of convicts whose appeals are pending before the Hon’ble High Court for long with no likelihood of hearing in the near future, shall continue to languish in jail.”.Based on the grounds above, the petitioner has prayed for an order granting stay of the impugned order..Read the Petition.Click here to download the Bar & Bench Android App