Courts should not be swayed only by allegations in FIR when deciding bail: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court recently observed that courts when deciding bail petitions should not be swayed by all the allegations and multiple offences in the first information report (FIR) or chargesheet but must instead examine the specific allegations against the particular accused who has sought bail [Amit Agrawal v State of NCT Delhi & Ors]. .Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani further stressed that bail must not be denied either as a mark of disapproval of the alleged conduct of an accused or for giving him/her the taste of imprisonment as a lesson. “This is a common pitfall since oftentimes courts get swayed by the allegations contained in an FIR or a chargesheet and tend to proceed on the textual gravity of the offences alleged, meaning that courts get blinded by the multitude of penal sections foisted against an accused by the prosecution, which builds a textual narrative in the FIR or in the chargesheet. It is important therefore, for a court to look into the specific allegations against a particular accused, and how, if at all, those allegations are supported by the material or evidence available on record,” the judge underscored. Pertinently, the judge also said that disregarding the presumption of innocence of an accused while failing to ensure a speedy trial at the same time is akin to committing sacrilegesaid the right to a speedy trial is the flip side of the presumption of innocence and it is important to appreciate that the consequences of pre-trial detention are grave. "An accused, who is otherwise presumed innocent until proven guilty, is subject to psychological and physical deprivations of jail life; and is even prevented from contributing to the preparation of his defense,” the single-judge said. .Justice Bhambhani made these observations while granting bail to one Amit Agrawal in a case related to criminal conspiracy to cheat the Customs Department. It was alleged that some former and serving employees of the Customs Department hatched a conspiracy to cheat the department of the unclaimed and unaccounted amounts lying in their bank accounts towards refund of customs duty to importers. However, Agrawal argued that he was neither the key conspirator nor did he play a central role in the forgery or cheating. .After considering the case, the Court noted that he has already spent 13 months as an undertrial and charges are yet to be framed. A chargesheet comprising about 10,000 pages was filed over a year ago, citing 49 prosecution witnesses, the Court recorded. “It is therefore obvious that trial will take a long time to conclude. In the meantime however, the petitioner has already suffered more than 01 year of judicial custody and has been exposed to ‘prisonisation’ witnesses but charges are yet to be framed,” the Bench said. Therefore, it ordered Agrawal’s release on bail. .Senior Advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir and Advocate Ariana D Ahluwalia appeared for Amit Agrawal. State was represented through the Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) Tarang Srivastva. Senior Standing Counsel Satish Aggarwala and advocate Gagan Vaswani represented the Customs Department. .[Read Judgement]