SC to decide if litigant should first approach sessions court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said it would examine if the option to move high courts for anticipatory bail would be the “choice of the party” or it was mandatory for litigants to first approach a sessions court.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta took note of the Kerala High Court’s “regular practice” of entertaining anticipatory bail applications directly without the litigant moving the sessions court.

“One issue which in bothering us is, in the Kerala High Court there seems to be a regular practice that the high court entertains the anticipatory bail applications directly without the litigant approaching the sessions court. Why is that so?” the bench asked.

It said there was a hierarchy provided in the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. Section 482 of the BNSS deals with direction for grant of bail to person apprehending arrest.

“It doesn’t happen in any other state. Only in the Kerala High Court, we have noticed that regularly applications (for anticipatory bail) are being directly entertained,” the bench observed.

The top court’s observation came while hearing a plea by two men challenging a Kerala High Court order rejecting their plea for anticipatory bail.

The bench noted in the case, the petitioners directly moved the high court for the relief without first going to the sessions court.

The high court was observed to have entertained such applications directly without the applicant approaching the sessions court that might result in proper facts not being placed on record which otherwise would have come before the sessions court.