SC Disapproves High Court Granting Ad-Interim Anticipatory Bail; Stresses On Caution In Granting Interim Protection
The case arose from an Appeal filed by the informant challenging the High Court's order, which the Supreme Court found to be effectively granting final anticipatory bail under the guise of ad-interim relief.

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the necessity for courts to exercise caution while granting interim protection to accused individuals during the pendency of anticipatory bail pleas.
The Bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan criticized the Punjab & Haryana High Court's decision to allow accused persons to join the investigation and directed their release on ad-interim bail in the event of arrest, terming it an overreach.
"There is no point in asking the accused to go before the investigating officer pending the final disposal of the anticipatory bail application before the High Court and further saying that in the event of arrest he shall be released on ad-interim bail. Such ad-interim reliefs have their own legal implications," the Court remarked.
Facts of the Case
The case arose from an Appeal filed by the informant challenging the High Court's order, which the Supreme Court found to be effectively granting final anticipatory bail under the guise of ad-interim relief.
The Appellant argued that such a relief, provided during the pendency of the anticipatory bail plea, was impermissible under the law and undermined the investigatory process.
Court's Reasoning
Agreeing with the Appellant, the Court emphasized that granting ad-interim bail in this manner effectively preempted the final decision on the anticipatory bail application.
The Bench highlighted that while courts have discretion in anticipatory bail matters, this discretion must be judiciously exercised. "Ordinarily, when the High Court takes up an anticipatory bail application for hearing, it has three options—reject it, issue notice without granting interim protection, or issue notice with appropriate protection. However, the ad-interim relief granted here is practically in the nature of final relief," the Court observed.
The Bench underscored that interim protections must not obstruct investigations or jeopardize the pursuit of justice. The Court referenced the Supreme Court's earlier decision in Srikant Upadhyay & Ors. v. State of Bihar & Anr. (2024), which stressed the importance of a cautious approach to granting anticipatory bail.
The Court reiterated that such interim orders should be issued only in fit cases, keeping in mind the facts and circumstances, and must not lead to tampering with evidence or hindrance to investigations.
Court's Directions
While disposing of the Appeals, the Court passed the following directions:
1. The High Court shall postpone the hearing of all the bail applications to 7 January 2025.
2. On the date of hearing of all the anticipatory bail applications, the respective applicants (original accused persons) shall personally remain present before the High Court. Upon conclusion of the hearing of all the anticipatory bail applications, if the High Court deems fit to reserve the order, then till the pronouncement of the order that the Court may pass the accused persons shall not be arrested.
3. We clarify that we have otherwise not expressed any opinion worth the name on the merits of the case of the prosecution. We had to intervene only because of the peculiar nature of the ad-interim protection that the High Court thought fit to grant.
4. All the anticipatory bail applications shall be decided by the Court on their own merits without being influenced by any of the developments that have taken place between the date of grant of the ad-interim relief and the date of passing of this order by this Court.
5. In the event if the accused persons seeking anticipatory bail do not remain present personally before the High Court, their applications shall not be taken up for hearing and it shall be open to the Investigating Officer to proceed to arrest the accused persons.
Accordingly, the Court disposed of the Appeals.
Cause Title: Deepak Aggarwal v. Balwan Singh & Anr. [Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No. 17504/2024]
Appearance:-
Appellant: Senior Advocates Neeraj Kishan Kaul, Naveen Pahwa, Advocates Mahesh Agarwal, Rishi Agrawala, Parminder Singh, Aroon Menon, Rajesh Kumar, Manavi Agarwal, Nilay Gupta, Varun Tyagi, Toshiv Goyal, Ritwik Mohapatra, E. C. Agrawala
Respondent: Senior Advocates Sham Diwan, Anil Airi, Paramjit Singh Patwalia, Vibha Dutta Makhija, Atmaram N S Nadkarni, AAG Vishal Mahajan, Advocates Tanvi Dubey, Raghav Sabharwal (AOR), Yash Dubey, Mekala Ganesh Kumar Reddy, Aditya Nema, Saifuddin Shams, Tanya Srivastava (AOR), Anmol Kheta, Shabnam Shams, Anup Kumar Pandey, Rakesh Dahiya (AOR), Aakash Dahiya, Praveen Kumar Jain, Aditya Dahiya, Rn Mahalawat, Sandeep Choudhary (AOR), S.s. Rebello, Deepti Arya, Arzu Paul, Manisha Gupta, Himanshi Nagpal, Rishikesh Haridas, Gaurav Dahiya, Manita Mahlawat, Samar Vijay Singh (AOR), Sabarni Som, Fateh Singh, Dr. Sukhdev Sharma, Venkatesh Rajput
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