Trial courts rarely muster courage to grant bail, expect High Courts to act judiciously: Supreme Court

Trial courts seldom "muster the courage" to grant bail to the accused, the Supreme Court observed on Monday as it stressed on High Court's responsibility to exercise their discretion judiciously when deciding bail matters..The Bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan made the observation while censuring Allahabad High Court for denying bail to an accused in a case of alleged religious conversion."We can understand that the trial court declined bail as trial courts seldom muster the courage of granting bail, be it any offence. However, at least, it was expected of the High Court to muster the courage and exercise its discretion judiciously," the Bench said..Having considered the allegations against the accused, the top court opined that the High Court should have exercised its discretion by granting bail to him. There was no good reason for the High Court to decline bail, it said."We are conscious of the fact that grant of bail is a matter of discretion. But discretion has to be exercised judicially keeping in mind the well settled principles of grant of bail. Discretion does not mean that the judge on his own whims and fancy declines bail saying conversion is something very serious," it added.The Bench also remarked when the High Court declines bail in the matters of the present type, it gives an impression that "altogether different considerations weighed with the presiding officer ignoring the well settled principles of grant of bail.".At least, it was expected of the High Court to muster the courage and exercise its discretion judiciously.Supreme Court.Further, the Court wondered whether the trial judges are aware about their wide powers to grant bail, despite all the conferences and seminars that are held to make them aware about their powers."Every year so many conferences, seminars, workshops etc. are held to make the trial judges understand how to exercise their discretion while considering a bail application as if the trial judges do not know the scope of Section 439 of the CrPC or Section 483 of the BNSS," the order noted. In the present case, the matter should not have reached the Supreme Court, the Bench said. It added that the trial court itself should have been "courageous enough to exercise its discretion" to release the accused on bail..This lack of "courage" is the reason that the Constitutional courts are flooded with bail applications, the Bench further said."This is one of the reasons why the High Courts and now unfortunately the Supreme Court of the country is flooded with bail applications.".[Read Order]