Gravity Of Offence Cannot Be Sole Criteria For Rejection Of Bail: Delhi HC Grants Bail To Sub Inspector Accused Of Accepting Bribe

The Court was hearing a Bail Application seeking a grant of regular bail under Section 483 of Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 in RC registered under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

The bench of Justice Chandra Dhari Singh observed, “…a bail shall not be withheld as a punishment. It has been enunciated time and again that deprivation of bail must be considered as a punishment and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and proven to be guilty.”

Senior Advocate Sunil Dalal appeared for the Appellant and SPP Anupam S Sharma appeared for the Respondent.

Brief Facts-

The Petitioner, a Sub-Inspector, was accused of demanding a bribe of Rs. 3L to settle a case. He was assigned to file an Action Taken Report (ATR) in complaints involving fraud allegations against certain individuals. A CBI case was filed against him based on a bribe complaint. The Petitioner was arrested after the bribe money was found on his office desk. His earlier bail request was denied due to the early stage of the investigation. Hence, the present Bail Application.

The Court relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Gurcharan Singh vs. State where the Court laid down certain guidelines and categorically held, “sub-section (1) of Section 437 of Code of Criminal Procedure grants discretionary power to the Courts to release an accused on bail in non-bailable cases, subject to imposition of conditions, if necessary. Thus, it is the judicial discretion of a Court to allow a bail application of an accused charged with non-bailable offences.”

The Court said, “…the gravity of an offence cannot be the sole criteria for rejection of bail. Therefore, taking into consideration the principle of law laid down by the Allahabad High Court in Peeyush Kumar Jain (Supra), it is relevant to note that bail cannot be solely denied on the basis of the grievousness of the offence.”

Accordingly, the Court allowed the Bail Application.

Cause Title: Yudhveer Singh Yadav v. CBI (Neutral Citation: 2024:DHC:7784)

Appearance:

Appellant: Senior Advocate Sunil Dalal, Advocates Sandeep Sharma, Sachin Baisla, Shivani Sharma, Nikhil Beniwal, Naresh Bhati, Mahabir Singh, Shipra Bali, Akash Gupta, Mudabbera Zaheen and Yashpriya Sahran

Respondent: SPP Anupam S. Sharma, Advocates Prakash Diran, Harpreet Kabi, Vashisht Rao and Syamantak Modgill

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