The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that an Investigating Agency cannot file a complaint without completing investigation of a case, charge sheet or prosecution, just to deprive an accused of his right to default bail under Section 167 of CrPC.
The order was passed by the Bench of Justice Krishna Murari and Justice C.T. Ravikumar on a writ petition filed by Ritu Chhabaria of the Radius Group.
The Bench, while making Ritu’s interim bail order absolute, took in view the history of CrPC and the reason why amendments have been brought in for Section 167 CrPC for default bail.
It said if an investigating agency had filed a charge sheet without completing the investigation, the same would not extinguish the right of the accused to get default bail.
The Apex Court further directed the Trial Court that while dealing with such cases, it should not continue to remand the arrested person beyond the maximum stipulated time without considering to grant default bail to the arrested person.
(Case title: Ritu Chhabaria vs Union of India and ors)