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The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, 25 May, stayed an Allahabad High Court order, which had held that apprehension of death due to COVID-19 can be a ground for grant of anticipatory bail.
Hearing the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Government’s appeal against the order, a vacation Bench of Justices Vineet Saran and BR Gavai said that this Allahabad High Court judgment cannot be cited as as a precedent to grant anticipatory bail and that the other courts should not rely on the observations made by the Allahabad High Court in this case.
The ruling had come in an anticipatory bail application before the High Court, filed by one Prateek Jain, who was charged under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 506, and 406 of the Indian Penal Code.
Further, the court appointed Senior Advocate V Giri as an amicus curiae to help with the larger issue on whether COVID should be a ground for anticipatory bail.
MORE DETAILS
While the top court stayed the observations made by the High Court, it did not stay the bail granted by the Allahabad High Court to the individual accused in the case.
WHAT WERE THE UP GOVERNMENT'S CLAIMS?
The Uttar Pradesh Government had claimed before the Supreme Court that:
WHAT HAD THE HIGH COURT SAID?
Granting anticipatory bail to Prateek Jain, the Allahabad High Court had said: “The law is a dynamic concept and it is required to be interpreted as per the requirements of time and with the change in the requirements of time, the interpretation and application of law is required to be adopted with change.”
Highlighting that there is no proper testing or treatment of persons confined in jails, the court also observed that there were several ways in which an arrested person could contract the virus, including from jail inmates, the police, and court personnel.
“The fundamental right to life unconditionally embraces even an undertrial,” the High Court had said and had gone on to refer to the Supreme Court’s own order permitting ailing journalist Siddique Kappan to be transferred to AIIMS.
Further, in the same order, the High Court had observed that the Election Commission, the higher courts, and the government “failed to fathom the disastrous consequences of permitting the elections in few states and the Panchayat elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh”.
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