Supreme Court flags practice of trial courts remanding accused to custody the moment they appear in response to summoning order

The Supreme Court recently flagged the practice of trial courts remanding accused to custody the moment they appear pursuant to summoning order [Mahdoom Bava vs Central Bureau of Investigation]. .In a judgment passed on March 20, a bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal noted that the said practice was prevalent in some parts of the country and its correctness will have to be examined in an appropriate case."In some parts of the country, there seems to be a practice followed by Courts to remand the accused to custody, the moment they appear in response to the summoning order. The correctness of such a practice has to be tested in an appropriate case," the bench stated..The observation came in a judgment granting anticipatory bail filed to four persons accused of forgery. appeal of four forgery-accused against an Allahabad High Court order refusing them anticipatory bail. The top court noted that though the complaint was lodged in 2019 none of the accused was ever taken into custody. All the accused joined the investigation and cooperated with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which after the completion of investigation, filed the final report on December 31, 2021. Further, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before the High Court had only asked for their presence and not arrest during the trial. After the CBI filed the final report, the special court issued summons for the appearance of the accused on March 7, 2022.Therefore, apprehending arrest, the appellants moved applications for anticipatory bail. The applications were rejected by the special court and the rejection order was also confirmed by the High Court.This led to the appeal before the Supreme Court..The apex court noted that the accused were apprehending arrest not at the behest of CBI but at the behest of the trial court."The appellants apprehend arrest, not at the behest of the CBI but at the behest of the Trial Court ... Suffice for the 5 present to note that it is not the CBI which is seeking their custody, but the appellants apprehend that they may be remanded to custody by the Trial Court and this is why they seek protection. We must keep this in mind while deciding the fate of these appeals," the bench noted..The Court, therefore, disposed of the petition by granting anticipatory bail to the accused."Appellants are entitled to be released on bail, in the event of the Court choosing to remand them to custody, when they appear in response to the summoning order ... subject to such terms and conditions as may be imposed by the special court, including the condition for the surrender of the passport, if any," it was clarified..Additional Solicitor General Vikramjit Banerjee appeared for the CBI.[Read Judgment]