NARENDRA LAL KHAN Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners in these cases are accused of offences under the new Explosives Act, 1908. The offences which they are alleged to have committed are non-bailable. They were arrested on warrants and after arrest were produced before the Magistrate, who committed them to jail pending trial. Applications for bail have been made to the Magistrate and the Sessions Judge and refused. They now apply to this Court for bail.

(2.) It has been strongly pressed upon us on their behalf that these persons are not likely to abscond, and certain English authorities have been cited which lay down the principles on which bail is granted in that country.

(3.) We are not prepared, however, to agree that the decisions of English Courts are necessarily a safe guide to us in interpreting sections of our own Code; and we observe that the cases cited refer to offences of much less gravity than those of which the present petitioners are accused. We doubt very much if English Judges would lend a ready ear to applications for bail on behalf of persons accused of offences of the gravity indicated in the papers before us. Nor are we prepared to admit that, in exercising our discretion under Section 498 of the Criminal Procedure Code, we should confine our attention to the question whether the prisoner is or is not likely to abscond, as other circumstances may also affect the question of granting bail to persons accused of having committed crimes of a grave and serious nature. If a person is accused before a Magistrate of a non-bailable offence then, unless he considers that there are no reasonable grounds for believing him to be guilty, the Magistrate must refuse bail, no matter how certain he may be that the accused will appear to stand his trial. The Magistrate is probably in a better position than the Sessions Judge, and almost certainly in a better position than the High Court, to estimate the probability of the prisoners absconding. It is illogical to suppose that the Legislature intended that the Sessions Judge and the High Court, in dealing with questions of bail, should be guided exclusively by a consideration, which the officer best qualified to estimate its value is debarred from referring to at all.