NEW DELHI: Holding denial of hearing on bail plea as an infringement of the rights and liberty assured to an accused, the Supreme Court has said that timely hearing must be granted in such cases even during the pandemic.
A bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian expressed shock that the Punjab and Haryana high court did not take up the bail plea for over a year. The accused approached the apex court after his request for early hearing was rejected by the HC.

 

“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 listed for hearing for more than one year. The accused has a right to hearing of his application for bail. In fact, the denial of hearing is an infringement on right and liberty assured to an accused,” the bench said on Tuesday. The order was uploaded on the SC website on Wednesday.
“Therefore, we hope the high court will be able to take up the application for bail at an early date so that the right of the accused of hearing of application for bail is not taken away…” the bench said, and asked the HC registrar general to bring this order to the notice of the “competent authority to take remedial steps at the earliest”.