Neeru Yadav v. State of U.P.
Background
The appellant's brother was murdered, and after a chargesheet was filed against several accused including respondent no. 2, the trial court rejected that accused's bail application. The Allahabad High Court later granted him bail chiefly on the ground of "parity", because several co-accused had already been granted bail, without examining his broader criminal history. The victim's sister challenged this bail order before the Supreme Court, not by seeking its cancellation for any new supervening event, but by arguing the High Court's order itself was legally unsound from the outset.
Decision Breakdown
The Court clarified an important distinction: cancelling bail (which normally requires a new supervening circumstance or breach of conditions) is different from testing whether a bail order was legally sustainable when it was granted. On the facts, the State itself produced a chart showing the accused was a "history-sheeter" facing seven other serious pending cases, including charges of murder, robbery, and offences under the Arms Act and Gangster Act: facts the High Court had entirely failed to consider before granting bail purely on parity grounds. The Supreme Court held this omission rendered the High Court's order perverse and unsustainable, allowed the appeal, set aside the bail order, and directed that the accused be taken back into custody (while clarifying it expressed no opinion on the other pending cases or on the trial itself).
Lesson Learnt
A court granting bail cannot rely on "parity" with co-accused alone: it must independently weigh factors like an accused's criminal history and the gravity of the charges; a bail order that ignores such material can be challenged and set aside as legally unsustainable, separate from any ordinary application to cancel bail.