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Sheikh Javed Iqbal @ Ashfaq Ansari @ Javed Ansari vs. State of Uttar Pradesh

Not available · 2024 INSC 534Decided 18 Jul 2024
Not available
Justice J.B. Pardiwala · Justice Ujjal Bhuyan

Background

The appellant was arrested in February 2015 near the Indo-Nepal border after fake currency notes worth about Rs. 26 lakh were allegedly recovered from him. He was charged under IPC's counterfeit-currency and sedition-adjacent provisions and Section 16 of the UAPA. His bail application was rejected by the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) in April 2023, and by the time this appeal reached the Supreme Court he had already been in custody for more than nine years without the trial concluding.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order and granted bail, relying heavily on precedent (including its own decision a fortnight earlier in a similar case, and the Constitution Bench-adjacent reasoning in Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb) that a stringent statutory bail bar cannot override an accused's fundamental right to a speedy trial when the trial has dragged on for years without progress. The Court held that continued incarceration for nearly a decade, with no end to the trial in sight, could not be justified regardless of the seriousness of the UAPA charges. Bail was granted subject to strict conditions, impounding of passport/citizenship documents, confinement to the trial court's jurisdiction, mandatory court appearances, and fortnightly police reporting.

Lesson Learnt

Long, unexplained delay in concluding a trial, even in serious national-security-linked cases, can itself become grounds for bail, because the right to liberty and a speedy trial under the Constitution prevails over rigid statutory restrictions when years pass with no trial in sight.

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

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