Anticipatory Bail Is An Exceptional Remedy, Ought Not To Be Granted Routinely: Supreme Court

The Appeals before the Supreme Court were filed against the order whereby the accused persons were granted pre-arrest bail in a case registered under Sections 143, 147, 149, 323, 387, 427, 452, 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

The Division Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta observed, “This Court, in numerous judgments, has held that anticipatory bail is an exceptional remedy and ought not to be granted in a routine manner. There must exist strong reasons for extending indulgence of this extraordinary remedy to a person accused of grave offences.”

Senior Advocate Shailesh Madiyal represented the Appellant while Advocate Siddharth Dharmadhikari represented the Respondents.

Factual Background

The appellant is the complainant-victim who filed a case against her husband, (respondent 4) and the other accused persons (private respondents in both the appeals) alleging that these accused persons acting in concert attempted to take forcible possession of a property, known as Hotel Vaishali, which was owned by the appellant-complainant’s father and devolved upon her post his demise. The appellant-complainant and the accused who were married in 2018, developed matrimonial strife. The accused managed to procure the power of attorney, and a gift deed of the subject hotel executed in his name. For these acts, the appellant-complainant filed an FIR against the accused, his family members and others.

The accused filed a civil suit, and an interim ex-parte injunction was passed in his favor. It was alleged that after being granted the same, the accused, along with his companions (co-accused persons), went to the hotel and forcibly trespassed into the premises owned by the appellant-complainant, where they caused extensive damage. An FIR came to be registered but the accused persons were granted pre-arrest bail by the High Court. Aggrieved thereby, the appellant approached the Apex Court.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that the allegations against the accused respondents were grave in nature. There was a clear observation by the Additional Sessions Judge in the bail rejection order that the accused respondents tried to mislead the Court by concealing the fact that the ex-parte injunction order had been set aside in appeal.

“The High Court seems to have glossed over this important aspect of the case and granted indulgence of pre-arrest bail to the accused respondents without considering the nature and gravity of allegations attributed to them and the fact that there was an imminent need for custodial investigation of the accused respondents”, it said.

The Bench found that the incident recorded in the FIR was a clear-cut attempt by the estranged husband (accused) to dispossess his own wife (appellant-complainant) from her lawfully inherited property i.e., the subject-hotel, by use of force and by employing henchmen to do the dirty work. Furthermore, by threatening the witnesses, the accused flouted the conditions of the anticipatory bail order.

Thus, allowing the appeals, the Bench set aside the impugned order passed by the High Court. “The anticipatory bail granted to the private respondents in both the appeals is hereby cancelled. The accused respondents shall surrender before the trial Court within a period of two weeks from today”, it ordered.

Cause Title: Nikita Jagganath Shetty @ Nikita Vishwajeet Jadhav v. The State of Maharashtra and another (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 878)

Appearance

Appellant: Senior Advocate Shailesh Madiyal, Advocates Nitin Lonkar, Sonali Suryawanshi, Nikhil Malani,Pradnya Bheke, Dikshant Mandhan, AOR Shankey Agrawal

Respondents: Advocate Siddharth Dharmadhikari, AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, Advocates Shrirang B. Varma, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna,Adarsh Dubey

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