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Ajwar vs Waseem and Another

Not available · 2024 INSC 438Decided 17 May 2024
Not available
Justice Hima Kohli · Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah

Background

During an Iftar gathering at his home in May 2020, the complainant's two sons were shot dead and his nephew seriously injured by a group of ten accused, allegedly due to prior enmity. After chargesheet and trial began, the Allahabad High Court granted regular bail to four of the accused (Waseem, Nazim, Aslam and Abubakar) through four separate orders, largely on grounds of "parity" with each other and citing that the accused side had also sustained unexplained injuries. This was already the third round of Supreme Court litigation in the case; bail granted to a related co-accused (Waseem's father) had twice earlier been set aside by the Supreme Court for lack of proper reasoning.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had ignored well-established bail parameters: the gravity of the offence, the accused's criminal antecedents, the consistent eyewitness testimony (including the complainant himself and three independent witnesses) naming the accused, and evidence that released accused had allegedly threatened and assaulted a key eyewitness in court. The Court noted the accused had spent less than three years in custody for a serious double-murder charge and had shown a pattern of delaying the trial. It reiterated that while bail once granted should not be cancelled mechanically, an appellate court can and should intervene when the bail order is unreasoned, perverse, or ignores relevant material, which was the case here, since three of the four grants relied merely on "parity" without independent reasoning. All four bail orders were quashed, and the accused were directed to surrender within two weeks, with the Court clarifying its observations only addressed defects in the bail orders, not the merits of the pending trial.

Lesson Learnt

Bail cannot be granted or upheld merely by copying reasoning from a co-accused's case ("parity") without independently examining the seriousness of the offence, the specific role of each accused, their criminal history, and evidence of witness intimidation; higher courts will step in to cancel bail where such individualized scrutiny is missing.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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