KALYAN SINGH Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Cri. Misc. Cases Nos. 549/88 and 560/88 are bail petitions respectively filed by Kadma alias Kadam Singh and Megha alias Megh Singh in connection with the same offence and have been taken up for analogous hearing. This order would dispose of all the three bail petitions.

(2.) Sarvashri D.R. Sharma, A.K. Palua and N.M. Haswani, Advocates for the respective petitioners. in the three bail petitions have been heard as also Shri P.D. Agrawal, Panel Lawyer, for the State. Case Diary perused.

(3.) Bail is not to be refused as a punitive measure, follows as a necessary corollary from the golden rule-thread which runs throughout the web of criminal jurisprudence that the law presumes an accused to be innocent till guilt has been proved. Yet bail is a matter of procedural privileges at the most, and not an accrued right, at least until it is granted, said Digby, J. in Sitao Jholia Dhimar v. Emperor. AIR 1943 Nagpur 36. 'Bail, not Jail' has become slogan in bail petitions picked up from the pronouncement of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in State of Rajasthan v. Balchand, AIR 1977 SC 2447 but it is often forgotten that the slogan is preceded by qualifying words that it was nothing but the "basic rule tersely put". Their Lordships proceeded to add -