'Bail is rule, jail an exception': What SC said while granting relief to Manish Sisodia

Manish Sisodia

While granting relief to AAP leader Manish Sisodia, the Supreme Court on Friday reminded the lower courts of a legal principle it had laid down decades ago: "bail is a rule and jail is an exception".

A bench of justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan granted bail to the former deputy chief minister of Delhi, who has been in custody for over 17 months in the liquor policy case.

The court said that the trial has not even commenced in the case and added that it would be a "travesty of justice" to send Sisodia back to a trial court.

Here's what the apex court said:

The apex court further said that "bail is the rule and jail is an exception" is a well-settled principle that the lower courts failed to observe.

"From our experience, we can say that it appears that the trial courts and the high courts attempt to play safe in the matters of grant of bail. The principle that bail is a rule and refusal an exception is at times followed in breach ... on account of non-grant of bail, even in open-and-shut cases, this court is getting huge number of bail petitions thereby adding to the huge pendency. It is high time that the trial courts and the high courts should recognise that bail is the rule and jail an exception."

It held that long jail time for the accused before conviction should not be permitted to become a form of punishment.

"As observed time and again, the prolonged incarceration before being pronounced guilty of an offence should not be permitted to become punishment without trial."

The bench noted that the trial is not expected to conclude in the near future and keeping Sisodia behind the bars for an indefinite period is therefore not correct.

"In the present case, 493 witnesses have been named. The case involves thousands of pages of documents, and over a lakh pages of digitalized documents. It is thus clear that there is not even remotest possibility of the trial being concluded in near future. In our view, keeping the appellant behind the bars for an unlimited period of time in the hope of speedy completion of trial would deprive fundamental right to liberty under Article 21 of Constitution."

The court further emphasised that “a citizen should not be forced to run from pillar to post and it will be a travesty of justice to relegate him [Sisodia] back to the trial court."

"Now, relegating the appellant to again approach the trial court and thereafter the High Court and only thereafter this Court, in our view, would be making him play a game of 'Snake and Ladder'," it said.