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Harjit Singh v. Inderpreet Singh @ Inder

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 418Decided 24 Aug 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 883 of 2021
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

The appellant's father, Mann Singh, was shot dead outside a Gurudwara by assailants who, according to the police investigation, were acting in connivance with Inderpreet Singh: a man who was already in jail at the time, serving a sentence in an earlier case filed by the same complainant's family. Investigators alleged Inderpreet Singh used a smuggled mobile phone from inside jail to coordinate the murder with the other accused. After being chargesheeted, Inderpreet Singh sought bail; a trial court refused it, but the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted him bail, reasoning he had not been physically present at the crime scene and had already spent 4-5 months in custody. The victim's son then appealed to the Supreme Court against that bail order.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's bail order and cancelled Inderpreet Singh's bail. It held that the High Court failed to properly weigh the seriousness of the allegations, that the accused, while already incarcerated, had allegedly hatched a conspiracy to murder the complainant's father using a jail-smuggled phone, and had also ignored his history as a repeat/habitual offender already convicted in four earlier criminal cases. Relying on a line of precedent on bail principles (including Ram Govind Upadhyay, Ash Mohammad, and Mahipal v. Rajesh Kumar), the Court reiterated that bail orders must reflect the seriousness of the offence, the accused's antecedents, and the risk of witness tampering or repeat offending, and an order granting bail without engaging with these factors is legally unsustainable. The accused was directed to surrender immediately, with the trial court free to decide the underlying murder case entirely on its own merits.

Lesson Learnt

Being in custody at the time of a crime does not automatically entitle a person to bail if there is credible evidence they orchestrated the crime from inside jail; courts reviewing bail orders must seriously weigh an accused's criminal history and the gravity of the charge, not just the time already spent in custody.

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

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