HYDERABAD: No person, who is convicted of offences like dacoity, murder for gain, kidnapping for ransom and killing of public servants, the offences falling under the National Security Act and those pertaining to narcotic drugs, is entitled to be released on bail despite their satisfying the criteria of the Supreme Court in Kashmira Singh’s case.
However, a person who is convicted for life and whose appeal is pending before a High Court is entitled to apply for bail after he has undergone imprisonment for a minimum period of five years following his conviction.
Dealing with a miscellaneous application for bail filed by nine appellants in an appeal pending before the High Court, a division bench comprising justices CV Nagarjuna Reddy and MSK Jaiswal of the Hyderabad High Court have found that the appellants, who are life convicts, have been undergoing imprisonment for over five years and felt that it is wholly unjust to incarcerate the life convicts (appellants) for several years on the ground of pendency of criminal appeals before the court.
The Supreme Court, in Kashmira Singh’s case, observed that it would be a travesty of justice if the life convicts were allowed to be incarcerated beyond a reasonable period in expectation of disposal of their appeals in future, the bench said.
Taking into consideration the suggestions made by the public prosecutors appearing for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, the bench has evolved broad criteria on which the applications for grant of bail pending the criminal appeals filed against the conviction for the offences, including the one under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (punishment for murder), are to be considered.
Accordingly, the bench has evolved the criteria for bail, some of which are given below.
1) A person who is convicted for life and whose appeal is pending before the court is entitled to apply for bail after he has undergone a minimum of five years’ imprisonment following his conviction;
2) grant of bail in favour of persons falling in Kashmira Singh’s case, subject to their good conduct in jail as reported by the respective jail superintendents;
3) the convicts will not be entitled to be released on bail despite their satisfying the criteria in Kashmira Singh’s case, if the offences are related to dacoity, murder for gain, kidnapping for ransom, killing of the public servants and so on; and
4) while granting bail, conditions have to be imposed viz., the appellants on bail must be present before the court at the time of hearing of criminal appeals and they must report in the respective police stations once in a month during the bail period.
Applying the aforementioned criteria to the miscellaneous application, the bench has granted conditional bail to the applicants.