For Girish Gandhi, the problem was too much bail and too few people to stand surety for him.
Gandhi got bail in 13 separate cases of criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal intimidation, but could only get two pairs of people to stand surety for his bail. He faced the prospect of staying behind bars for his inability to find 22 others to sign as surety for the remaining 11 First Information Reports (FIRs).
Understanding the man’s quandary, a Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan, in a recent judgment, said the same two pairs of people were enough to stand sureties for all the 13 cases in which he got bail.
Justice Viswanathan, who authored the judgment, said Gandhi must not continue to stay behind bars for his inability to find enough people to stand surety for him. He had a physically handicapped wife, a young son and an aged mother to care for.
The Supreme Court said judges could not shut their eyes to the “hard realities of life”. One of them being that only a very few people would take the risk of standing surety for another person.
“Whether it is to get individuals to stand as a guarantor for a loan transaction or as a surety in a criminal proceeding, the choice for a person is very limited. It will very often be a close relative or a longtime friend,” Justice Viswanathan observed.
The choice would be still narrower in a criminal proceeding.
“The circle may get even more narrowed as the normal tendency is to not disclose about the criminal proceeding to relatives and friends in order to protect one’s reputation. These are hard realities of life in our country and as a court of law we cannot shut our eyes to them,” Justice Viswanathan pointed out.
In cases like that of Gandhi, the Supreme Court said, judges should pass a “reasonable and proportionate” order which would both protect the person’s fundamental right under Article 21 (right to life) of the Constitution and at the same time guarantee his presence. As to what such an order should be, will again depend on the facts and circumstances of each case.
“To grant bail and thereafter to impose excessive and onerous conditions is to take away with the left hand what is given with the right… Sureties are essential to ensure the presence of the accused, released on bail. At the same time, where the court is faced with the situation where the accused enlarged on bail is unable to find sureties in multiple cases, there is also a need to balance the requirement of furnishing the sureties with his or her fundamental rights under Article 21,” Justice Viswanathan explained, allowing Gandhi to have the same set of persons stand bail surety in all the 13 cases registered across States.
