Court must have confined itself to the issues relevant
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. OF 2023
(arising out of Special Leave Petition (Crl,) No. 6572 of 2022)
SEEMANT KUMAR SINGH … APPELLANT(S)
VERSUS
MAHESH PS & ORS. … RESPONDENT(S)
WITH
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. OF 2023
(Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Crl) NO. 6253 of 2022)
THE STATE OF KARNATAKA ... APPELLANT(S)
VERSUS
MAHESH P.S. & ANR. ... RESPONDENT(S)
WITH
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. OF 2023
(Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Crl) NO. 6573 of 2022)
J. MANJUNATH ... APPELLANT(S)
VERSUS
THE STATE OF KARNATAKA & ORS. ... RESPONDENT(S)
1
JUDGMENT
KRISHNA MURARI, J.
...
ISSUE II- Whether the direction issued by the High Court to seek for reports
against the Appellant No.2 during the bail proceedings of the respondent no.1 is
liable to be set aside?
21. As has been mentioned above, the Appellant No.2, who is merely an
employee of the institution that is handling the investigation of the alleged
crime, had no lis in the abovementioned bail proceedings. The High Court
vide an oral summons directed the presence of the Appellant No.2, to which
he complied. After being summoned, the High Court, without allowing the
Appellant No.2 a chance to be heard, and without going through the proper
10
procedure, issued a direction to the counsel of CBI to place reports against
the Appellant No.2. At the sake of repetition, it must be kept in mind that all
of this had happened within Section 439 Cr.PC proceedings, and that too
against a person unconnected to the accused.
22. In the case of RBI v. Cooperative Bank Deposit A/C HR. Sha4
,the
Reserve Bank Of India challenged an order passed by the High Court during
an application under section 439 of the CrPC, wherein directions were issued
to the bank to distribute the money it recovered from the accused. This court,
while examining these directions held that the High Court must have
confined itself to the issues relevant for the purposes of deciding bail. The
relevant observation of this Court is being extracted hereunder:
“We are of the opinion that the far-reaching consequences of the
directions of the High Court are in a way beyond the scope of
an application for bail filed by an accused under Section 439 of
the Code of Criminal Procedure and the High Court, as much
as anyone else, must stay confined to the issues relevant to the
matter before it. It was thus not open to the High Court to pass
orders which could affect the working of banks all over the
country. It has been pointed out by Mr Basava Prabhu S. Patil,
the learned Senior Counsel for the appellant that it is for this
reason that Reserve Bank of India had filed this appeal.”
23. In the case of State Represented by Inspector of Police v. M. Murugesan
& Anr5
, this Court held that in cases where a separate mechanism exists, the
4 (2010) 15 SCC 85
5 (2020) 15 SCC 251
11
court under its inherent powers, especially in context of bail proceedings,
cannot issue directions that are outside the purview of deciding the grant or
rejection of bail. The relevant observations made by this court are being
reproduced herein:
“We find that the learned Single Judge has collated data from
the State and made it part of the order after the decision [of the
bail application, as if the Court had the inherent jurisdiction to
pass any order under the guise of improving the criminal justice
system in the State. The jurisdiction of the court under Section
439 of the Code is limited to grant or not to grant bail pending
trial. Even though the object of the Hon'ble Judge was laudable
but the jurisdiction exercised was clearly erroneous. The effort
made by the Hon'ble Judge may be academically proper to be
presented at an appropriate forum but such directions could
not be issued under the colour of office of the court.”
24. Further, in the case of State of Punjab vs Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar
and Others6
, where after deciding a criminal appeal, the High Court
continued to pass orders with respect to other offenders in unconnected cases,
this court held that such invocation of jurisdiction outside the purview of the
main case at hand was unjust. The relevant paragraph of the said judgment is
being produced herein:
“An inherent power is not an omnibus for opening a Pandora's
box, that too for issues that are foreign to the main context. The
invoking of the power has to be for a purpose that is connected
to a proceeding and not for sprouting an altogether new issue.
6 (2011) 14 SCC 770
12
A power cannot exceed its own authority beyond its own
creation.”
25. In light of the abovementioned facts, we are of the opinion that the
actions of the High Court during the bail proceedings of a third party are
manifestly arbitrary and unjust, and the High Court must have confined itself
to the issues relevant to it for the purposes of deciding the bail of the
Respondent No.1. A court of bail, especially in cases where the bail is sought
for by a third party, is not a court that has all the relevant information to pass
an order on the merits of an unconnected party, and such an order, if passed,
has the potential to cause great harm to the said party without them being
afforded an actual and meaningful opportunity to defend themselves. It is a
well settled principle of law that any party, when being accused of an illegal
act, must be given an opportunity be fairly heard. This opportunity to be
meaningfully heard however has not been afforded to the Appellant No.2,
and hence we hold issue 2 in favour of the Appellant No.2