Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has directed all courts to ensure that any litigant who approaches for bail should not mislead the court by suppressing facts.
The court also directed that every bail application would henceforth disclose details of earlier bail pleas moved by the same litigant and even inform about any pending proceeding in this regard.
The direction was issued by a Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Rajeev Bindal after it came across an order passed by the Odisha High Court granting bail to one Kusha Duruka charged under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act at a time when the top court was hearing his appeal challenging an earlier order by the same high court rejecting bail.
The court found out that the accused tried to deceive the High Court by suppressing the pendency of his appeal before the top court.
Duruka was arrested on February 3, 2022, along with one more person for possession and transportation of 23.8 kg ganja. A case was registered under section 20(b)(ii)(C) of the NDPS Act, 1985. After the trial court refused him bail, he approached the Odisha HC which dismissed his appeal on March 3, 2023. Against this order, he approached the apex court.
Even as these proceedings were pending, on October 11 last year, the HC granted him bail and when the top court enquired how this was possible when the matter was pending before it, a report was called from the state Government in this regard.
The Principal Secretary in the state law department filed an affidavit in the top court last month stating that counsel appearing for the state in the HC neither had the knowledge of the matter pending in the top court nor about the dismissal of the first bail application.
