Bail is a provisional release of the accused in cases where the court is yet to announce the judgment. The objective of which is to prevent violation of personal liberty of a person. In India, we classify bail into three categories Regular bail, Interim bail, and Anticipatory bail. In Regular bail the release of the accused is granted after the arrest, in interim bail, the accused is granted bail for a short period of time that is while the pending of the regular or anticipatory bail the main purpose of which is to allow the accused time to approach the court for application release. Whereas anticipatory bail is issued before, the person is arrested.
What is anticipatory bail?
Section 438 of CrPC, talks about the grant of bail to a person anticipating arrest. In which an application for bail can be made before a high court or a session’s court if any person has a reason to believe that he/she may be arrested for the non-bailable offence can file anticipatory bail praying that in the event of arrest, he/she may be released on bail. Its main objective is to safeguard against arbitrary and groundless arrest.
Now the grant of which depends on various factors like
- Nature and gravity of the offence so if the court has a reason to believe that the offence under which the accused is arrested is of serious nature and would have a wrong impact or consequence towards society or harm to any human then in that case the court can deny the application of the accused
- Applicants possibility to flew from justice, if the accused is not a resident of India or has given the court a reason to believe that he/she can fly from India then the court has full authority under this act to deny the application. If a person is not a resident of India but wants to apply for anticipatory bail then he/she need to bring a person who is an active resident of India and can guarantee his/her presence in case of the court hearing.
- The character of an applicant now plays a very significant role in determining the grant of release if the accused has a previous history of any offences or is innocent in that case then it will be considered by the court of law before granting any decision.
- Whether the accused can interfere or influence the ongoing investigation, if the court feels that the accused if released will affect or in any way corrupt the investigation then it is within the power of the court to deny the bail.
In case of grant of application in favor of the accused the court might also impose certain terms and conditions along with it and might put restrictions on travel abroad, which if defied can result in cancellation of the application. Moreover, on receiving an application either by a complainant or the prosecution the anticipatory bail may be canceled even the police can arrest the accused without any warrant.
