Article 21 is soul of Constitution, liberty of citizens is paramount: SC

The bench said it has come across various matters from the Bombay High Court where bail and anticipatory bail applications were not being decided expeditiously. Referring to one such case, the bench said the application for anticipatory bail was not decided for more than four years.

“We have also come across numerous matters wherein the judges are not deciding the matter on merit but find an excuse to shunt the case on different grounds. We, therefore, request the chief justice of the High Court of Bombay to convey our request to all judges exercising criminal jurisdiction to decide the matter pertaining to bail/anticipatory bail as expeditiously as possible,” the bench said.

It asked the registrar (judicial) of the apex court to communicate this order to the registrar (Judicial) of the high court, who shall place the same before the chief justice of Bombay High Court.

On 29 January, the bench noted that on 30 March 2023, the high court had asked Vahile to approach the trial court for regular bail even though it had noted that he had been languishing in jail for more than seven years.

The top court had said, “When the petitioner applied for bail on merits and also on the ground that he had been incarcerated in jail for seven and a half years, the approach of the high court in only permitting him to file an application for bail before the trial court/sessions court and not deciding the prayer for bail on merits, in our view, would amount to non-exercise of jurisdiction vested in it.”