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Ravi Prakash Singh @ Arvind Singh v. State of Bihar

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 325 of 2015)Decided 20 Feb 2015
Criminal Appeal No. 325 of 2015
Justice Dipak Misra · Justice Prafulla C. Pant

Background

The appellant, accused in a murder and arms-related case, surrendered before a Magistrate on 5 July 2013 and was kept in judicial custody while the police investigated. Under Section 167(2) CrPC, an accused facing an offence punishable with death/life imprisonment must be released on "default bail" if the charge sheet is not filed within 90 days of remand. On 3 October 2013, which the appellant argued was the 91st day, he applied for such bail, but the Magistrate rejected it on the ground that the charge sheet had already been received that same day. Both the Sessions Judge and the Patna High Court upheld the refusal of bail, leading to this appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined the record and confirmed that the charge sheet, though signed by the investigating officer on 30 September 2013, was received and endorsed "seen" by the Chief Judicial Magistrate on 3 October 2013. Applying its own earlier precedent (State of M.P. vs. Rustam), the Court held that when computing the 90-day period under Section 167(2), the day of remand (5 July 2013) must be excluded, meaning the charge sheet was actually filed exactly on the 90th day, not the 91st as the appellant contended. Since the charge sheet was filed within time, there was no default triggering the right to statutory bail, and the lower courts had correctly rejected the bail application.

Lesson Learnt

The 90-day deadline for the police to file a charge sheet (failing which an undertrial accused is entitled to automatic "default bail") is counted by excluding the day the accused was first remanded to custody, getting this one-day calculation wrong can be the difference between release and continued detention.

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

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