New Delhi: The Supreme Court has held that while courts are empowered to reject an accused person’s plea for anticipatory bail, they do not have the authority to order the accused to surrender before the trial court.
The observation came in an appeal arising from Jharkhand, where an accused in a land dispute-related cheating case had approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail. The High Court dismissed the plea and directed the accused to surrender before the trial court and apply for regular bail.
Hearing the challenge, a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Ujjal Bhuyan said directing surrender in such circumstances is beyond the court’s powers and is contrary to law.
The bench noted that the High Court had relied on an earlier ruling to issue the surrender direction, but clarified that the practice is erroneous and that ordering surrender after rejecting anticipatory bail is an act without jurisdiction.
