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The Supreme Court of India has expressed its shock over the denial of a bail hearing matter, pending for over a year by the Punjab and Haryana court.
It has said that holding denial on bail plea is an infringement of the rights and liberty assured to an accused. Even during the pandemic, timely hearing must be granted in cases like these. At least half the number of judges need to be present at high courts on alternate days and attend to matters of urgency and individual liberty.
The bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian said in its order on June 15, “Normally we do not interfere with an interim order passed by the high court but we are constrained to pass the present order as we are shocked to see that the bail application under Section 439 CrPC is not being mentioned for hearing for more than one year.” They added in the judgement, “The accused has a right to hearing of this application for bail. In fact, the denial of hearing is an infringement on right and liberty assured to an accused.”
Chunni Lal Gaba, a Goraya-based multimillionaire businessman is an accused in the ₹6000 crore Bhola drug racket case of 2013, whose petition was heard by the apex court. After the order by Supreme Court, the matters regarding hearing of this particular case have been assigned by high court to a special division bench presided over by Justice Rajan Gupta.