Grant of statutory bail to an accused due to the failure of the police to complete investigation within the stipulated time “is a sort of a rap on the knuckles of the police”. Therefore, such a bail cannot be granted on other grounds such as failure of a judicial magistrate to pass a formal judicial order on an application filed by the police for extension of judicial remand period, the Madras High Court has ruled.
Justices M. Venugopal and P.N. Prakash held so while dismissing criminal appeals preferred by five individuals seeking statutory bail in cases booked against them by National Investigation Agency (NIA) on charges of planting bombs to kill prominent personalities in Madurai and Puducherry in 2014. Thiruselvam, Kaviarasan, Kalai alias Kalailingam, Karthick and John alias John Marteen were the five appellants.
The judges held that statutory bail, also known as default bail, could be granted only if the police had failed to submit a final report, after completing the investigation, within the statutory period prescribed for different kinds of offences and not on other grounds such as mistakes committed by judicial officers. “The maxim Actus Curiae Neminem Gravabit — an act of the court shall prejudice no one — cannot be ignored.
‘No provision in law’
“This court cannot hold that failure of a Magistrate/judge to pass judicial orders on extension of remand applications would entail default bail to the accused and thus invent an hitherto unknown new category of default bail. Such a ground for bail cannot be founded either under Section 167(2) or under Section 437 Code of the Criminal Procedure,” Mr. Justice Prakash said while penning the judgment for the Division Bench.
The appellants were suspected to be members of Tamilar Viduthalai Padai and to have played a role in planting a pipe bomb under the car of the incumbent Chief Minister of Puducherry V. Narayanaswamy in July 2014. They were also accused of having planted a similar bomb near a supermarket on the outskirts of Madurai in the same year. Both these cases got transferred from the local police to the NIA.
