Professional Sureties Have Become The Norm Since Criminal Courts Are Not Releasing Accused On Personal Bonds: Punjab & Haryana High Court

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has issued a slew of directions with respect to Aadhaar Authentication Services in all the court premises, observing that the practice of "professional sureties" is increasing because courts do not release accused persons on bail on personal bonds.Justice Pankaj Jain said, "The professional sureties have become the norm as the genuine sureties are wary to encumber their property due to prolonged trials. Delay in trials is leading to a situation where genuine surety is being pushed out by professional surety. Just like it is famously said, “bad money keeps good money out of circulation”. The other reason for mushrooming of professional sureties is the practice being adopted by the criminal courts of insisting upon the sureties and not releasing accused on personal bonds."The development came while hearing a batch of petitions pertaining to the persons who faked their identity while furnishing surety bonds pursuant to the bail orders passed by the Courts."The menace is widespread. These five bail applications before this Bench is testimony to the said fact. Repeatedly the Constitutional Courts have underlined necessity of separate law relating to bails. The chorus has only grown louder in recent times," the Court remarked.Justice Jain issued the following directions:(i) The appropriate Authorities i.e. the Secretaries of e-Governance Department of State of Punjab, State of Haryana as well as Union Territory, Chandigarh shall make appropriate application under Rule 4 of the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Rules, 2020 to the Secretary Ministry of Electronics and IT in the prescribed form requesting for Aadhaar Authentication Services in all the Court premises situated in their respective States/U.T. within 30 days from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order.(ii) The said application once received by the Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, shall be considered favourably within a further period of 30 days. The necessary equipment to be provided to the Courts in terms of the applicable scheme with applicable contribution by the State and the Central Government will be provided within a further period of 30 days. Entire system shall be made operational including implementation of software and hardware within a period of 4 months from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order.(iii) That the infrastructure for bio-metric verification of the Aadhaar Card at the Court premises shall be provided by the NIC, with the technical assistance of UIDAI.Once the infrastructure is in place:(iv) The Courts while accepting surety shall insist for complete details and identity document of surety including Aadhaar Card. Consent of the surety shall be obtained for verification of Aadhaar Card.(v) The Magistrate concerned i.e. the Magistrate having jurisdiction over the local areas within the limits of the concerned station shall verify the Aadhaar Card of the accused in the case of personal bond and the Aadhaar Cards of the sureties as well in the case of surety bonds.(vi) For first time accused facing prosecution qua offences punishable with imprisonment of less than 7 years under the Indian Penal Code, the Courts shall comply with guidelines issued by Supreme Court in Hussainara Khotoon's case ibid and shall not insist on sureties if parameters laid down in Para 4 of the said judgment are fulfilled on inquiry/verification of Aadhaar number of the accused.(vii) The Periphery Surety Module which was planned with the provision of not only integration of Aadhaar which authenticates and identifies individual Aadhaar number holder but also immoveable property details which are tendered as surety by the party in the case, shall be fully implemented and utilized optimally. Whenever a person is to stand as surety the same shall be cross-checked with the database to satisfy w.r.t. the provisions of Section 441A of 1973 Code.(viii) The Principal District Judge and the Chief Judicial Magistrates shall inspect the register of Sureties periodically, preferably after every three months.The Court further directed the Registrar General, Punjab & Haryana High Court to issue necessary circulars to all the Courts in the States of Punjab, Haryana and U.T., Chandigarh.Justice Jain was hearing a batch of bail petitions filed by persons accused of furnishing fake identities in bail bonds.After hearing the submissions, the Court noted that "Pollutants in the form of professional sureties in the system were first noticed by Legal Aid Committee appointed by Govt. of Gujarat." The report of the Committee was quoted by the Supreme Court in the case of Moti Ram and others vs. State of M.P. (1978) observing as under :"The evil of the bail system is that either the poor accused has to fall back on touts and professional sureties for providing bail or suffer pre-trial detention. Both these consequences are fraught with great hardship to the poor. In one ...

Professional Sureties Have Become The Norm Since Criminal Courts Are Not Releasing Accused On Personal Bonds: Punjab & Haryana High Court

Aiman J. Chishti

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