Allahabad HC Directs All Criminal Courts To Mention Criminal Antecedents of Accused in Bail Order

December 22, 2020

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Recently, the Allahabad High Court directed the Trial Courts to give complete details of criminal antecedents of all the accused/applicants before them, and in a case where there are no criminal antecedents, they should record the same.

The Bench further observed that even though criminal antecedents were not the sole decisive factor for bail applications, the same should be looked into while deciding a bail application u/s 439 Cr.PC as per the legislative mandate of Sec. 437 CrPc.

Case Before the Court:

While hearing a regular bail application filed by one Uday Pratap, learned counsel for the State contended that according to the CCTV footage, the accused was seen moving out from the place where the co-accused and the deceased were consuming liquor.

It was also argued that the younger brother of the deceased had seen the applicant consume liquor with the deceased.

Learned Counsel for the State argued that all the accused gave poison to the deceased due to which he died, and as per the chemical analysis of the viscera, there was poison in the deceased’s body.

It was further argued that the accused had a criminal history and was involved in seven other criminal cases.

Observations made by the Court:

After hearing both the parties, the Court observed that criminal antecedents of the accused/applicant were not disclosed to the Court.

The Court referred to the viscera report wherein it was stated that Ethyl Alcohol poison and, Organo Chloro a type of insecticide, was found in the body system of the deceased and the fact that the accused had a lengthy criminal history, made the Bench opine that the applicant/accused should not be released on bail.

Hon’ble Court remarked that in the instant case and many others, it was seen that an averment is made that the accused was not involved in many other cases.

Even the lower court which had rejected the bail application was silent on the issue of past criminal antecedents of the accused, and this fact was only discovered on the instructions of Learned AGA.