The Supreme Court has stayed the Allahabad High Court order, in which the High Court said that if a criminal is facing coronavirus and fear of death, then Anticipatory bail can be given. The UP government had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against this order of the High Court, Supreme Court on Tuesday said that no person should be granted anticipatory bail due to fear of death from Corona. It is necessary to consider the nature and severity of the crime.
The Supreme Court said that the decision on anticipatory bail should be made on the basis of the seriousness of the case and not on the basis of fear of death due to corona infection. The court said that this order of the High Court cannot be used as an example on behalf of other courts. In fact, last week the Allahabad High Court had said in one of its orders that due to high number of prisoners in jails and increase in cases of infection, inmates can be given anticipatory bail.
The UP government had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against this decision of the High Court.
While hearing the case, a bench of Justices Vineet Saran and BR Gavai said, ‘You have trouble with the comments. It was a unilateral comment that advance bail should be given to all people. We will issue notice on this, but will not impose stay. But we prohibit such unilateral statements. ‘ In fact, the High Court had granted anticipatory bail to accused Prateek Jain in 130 cases. After this, the debate started on the High Court’s decision. The High Court said in its order that the way corona cases are showing up, sending an accused to jail could be risky for his life.
The bench, however, did not stay the bail granted to the accused, one Prateek Jain, facing 130 criminal cases but made it clear that if the accused did not appear on the next date, the bail granted to him will stand cancelled and the HC order subsequently stayed. The HC allowed the accused to remain on anticipatory bail till January 3, 2022, considering the news of a possible third wave of infections by September this year.
