District Judges Reluctant To Give Bails, Fear Being Targeted: Chief Justice DY Chandrachud

Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud has said that district judges are reluctant to give bails over fears of being targeted.

Since bails are not being given at district levels, Chandrachud said the higher judiciary gets clogged with a high number of bail cases.

Speaking at a function organised by the Bar Council of India (BCI) to felicitate him on being appointed as the CJI, Chandrachud addressed the issue of the higher judiciary facing large number of bail cases among other issues. 

Chandrachud said the higher judiciary is getting "flooded" with bail matters because of the reluctance at the grassroots level to grant bail.

"And why judges at the grassroots are reluctant to grant bail, not because they don't have the ability, not because the judges at the grassroots don't understand the crime," said Chandrachud, adding there is a "sense of fear" among the judges at the grossroots that if they grant bail, "will somebody target me tomorrow on the ground that I granted bail in this heinous case". 

"This sense of fear nobody talks about but which we must confront because unless we do that we are going to render our district courts toothless and our higher courts dysfunctional," said Chandrachud, adding that why should one distrust any person who grants relief to a citizen.

This is not the first time that such concerns have been raised. A 2020 report in Hindustan Times noted legal experts as saying that the reason lower courts do not give bails is that magistrates and judges fear criticism from higher judiciary as well as on social media.

It has been highlighted that judges believe in 'bail is the rule, jail is the exception'.

"As far as law is concerned, ‘bail but not jail’ is the rule. This should be the rule. Bail is a conditional order...In giving bail, the courts should access the facts such as if the accused can run away or tamper evidence or if he or she will not take part in the investigation. The judges ought to follow this rule. Otherwise, it’s unfair," said retired Justice BN Srikrishna to HT.

The lack of bails means that Indian prisons are overcrowded as a very large number of prisoners are under-trials.

The "flooding" of the higher judiciary also means that the higher courts are also disturbed from cases concerning public interest litigations (PILs) and constitutional matters.

"A more recent study too found constitutional matters, along with public interest litigation, to constitute less than ten per cent of the Supreme Court’s output...Therefore, bail, as important a matter of fundamental rights as it is, should not become an impediment in the functioning of the Supreme Court as it was intended, that is to deal with constitutional matters," says an article in The Leaflet.

Earlier in 2020, when the Bombay High Court did not give bail to Arnab Goswami, the Chandrachud-authored Supreme Court verdict said "the high court abdicated its constitutional duty and function as a protector of liberty". The Supreme Court granted bail to Goswamia after the lower courts denied it. 

"It is the duty of courts across the spectrum — the district judiciary, the high courts and the Supreme Court — to ensure that the criminal law does not become a weapon for the selective harassment of citizens," said the SC bail order, adding the high court should have been "cognisant of the specific ground which was raised before it by the appellant that he was being made a target as a part of a series of occurrences which have been taking place since April 2020", according to The Print.

(With PTI inputs)