Accused languishes in jail after Trial Judge misinterprets Supreme Court bail order; SC calls for action

The Supreme Court recently took exception to the a trial court judge in Andhra Pradesh misinterpreting the top court's order, resulting in an accused remaining in jail despite the apex court granting him interim bail [Gopisetty Harikrishna vs State of Andhra Pradesh]. .In an order passed on May 9, a bench of Justices UU Lalit, Ravindra Bhat, PS Narasimha and Sudhanshu Dhulia noted that the apex court by way of an earlier order dated September 28, 2020, had directed the accused to be produced before the trial court within three days of the order and for the trial court to release him on interim bail subject to terms and conditions it deems appropriate. .However, the accused was produced before the trial court judge a month later since Nellore Central Prison where the accused was lodged received a physical copy of the Supreme Court order only on October 6, 2020. By then, due to COVID-19 pandemic, the movement of the prisoner was not immediately possible, it was highlighted.Eventually, he was produced before trial judge who on October 29 dismissed the bail plea stating the three days limitation to produce accused had lapsed. Thus the accused kept languishing in jail. Terming it a "very sorry state of affairs," the Supreme Court has now asked the Andhra Pradesh High Court to seek an explanation from the trial court judge as to how the bail order of the top court was misinterpreted by him. "This case portrays very sorry state of affairs. We are surprised that a judicial officer had read the order passed by this Court, in the manner as it gets disclosed from his order," the top court said.The reason why stipulation of three days was inserted was to expedite the process of release on bail, the apex court emphasised. "The reason was not to put any limitation of a specified period within which time alone the bail could be availed and not thereafter," the Supreme Court said. .The top court, therefore, ordered the Andhra Pradesh High Court to take up the matter on its administrative side and call for an explanation from the concerned presiding officer of the trial court."We would normally have considered it as defiance of the order passed by this Court but at this stage we rest content by observing that the High Court shall take up the matter on its administrative side; call for an explanation from the concerned presiding officer of the trial court and deal with the matter on the administrative side," the order said. The Court made it clear that its observations would not amount to a final determination of the matter."This is not to say that whatever we have observed shall be taken as final determination. The matter shall be dealt with purely on its merits on the administrative side," the Court clarified. The Court also noted in its order that the petitioner had been released on bail. .Nevertheless, the Court said that this incident posed a question on whether similar kind of situations have arisen or could arise in future. Hence, a corrective mechanism will have to be put in place, the Court said. It, therefore, sought details from all High Courts on the number of such cases in which bail has been granted but the accused are yet to be released. "Every High Court shall give us details of all such orders which remain to be complied with and about the persons concerned who are still languishing in jail. One of the ways to address the problem would be to have a register and maintain the figures as to in how many matters orders directing release of the persons on bail were issued and if out of such total number of matters, any person stood deprived of the opportunity of being released on bail for some reason or the other. The Register must indicate the reason including whether proper security etc. could be arranged by the concerned person or not. Such matters should then be listed before the concerned court in the succeeding month and the fact that the person has not yet been released on bail, be brought to the notice of the concerned Court under whose orders the relief of bail was afforded to the person(s)," the order said. The High Courts have to file their status report within six weeks..Senior Advocate Mahalakshmi Pavani and Advocates Revathy Raghavan, Divya Singhvi, Neha Syal and Jeyam appeared for the petitioner.Senior Advocate S Niranjan Reddy and Advocates Mahfooz Nazki, Polanki Gowtham, Shaik Mohamad Haneef, Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, Rajeswari Mukherjee, KV Girish Chowdary, Akhila Palem, Abhishek Sharma and Sahil Raveen represented the Andhra Pradesh government..[Read Order]