Delhi: Personal liberty a right, can deny bail only if necessary, says court

NEW DELHI: While granting bail to a 65-year-old man in an attempt-to-murder case, a court has observed that seriousness of the offence should not to be treated as the only ground for refusal of bail.
Refusal of bail is a restriction on the personal liberty of an individual guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution, additional sessions judge Naveen Kumar Kashyap said, adding that detention in custody pending completion of trial could be a cause of great hardship.
Deprivation of liberty must be considered a punishment unless it’s required to ensure presence of an accused during the trial, the court said. “The courts owe more than verbal respect to the principle that punishment begins after convictions, and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and duly found guilty,” it stated in the order on July 7.
The judge, however, also said that from time to time, necessity would demand that some unconvicted persons be held in custody pending trial, but in such cases, “necessity” would be the operative test. “In this country, it would be quite contrary to the concept of personal liberty enshrined in the Constitution that any person should be punished in respect of any matter... upon only the belief that he will tamper with the witnesses if left at liberty, save in the most extraordinary circumstances,” the court observed.
It said any imprisonment before conviction had a substantial punitive content and it would be improper for any court to refuse bail as a mark of disapproval of a previous conduct, whether the accused had been convicted for it or not, or to refuse bail to an unconvicted person to give him a taste of imprisonment as a lesson.
The court added that the society by its collective wisdom through the process of law could withdraw the liberty that it had sanctioned to an individual when he became a danger to the societal order.
It granted bail to the accused on furnishing a bail bond of Rs 15,000 with one surety of like amount. It also directed him not to tamper with evidence or influence the witnesses.