No certified copy needed: Punjab and High Court eases bail to end custody delays

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that liberty once granted by the court cannot be withheld due to the requirement of certified copies and stamped paperwork. In a progressive and humane ruling, the bench held that downloaded copies of bail or sentence suspension orders, duly attested by an advocate from the court’s official website, must be accepted for furnishing bail bonds. This, the court said, would ensure that no one remained in custody even a day longer due to procedural delays in transmitting orders from the registry, prosecution, or computer systems.  

The ruling — cutting through the bureaucratic bottlenecks that too often chain freedom to paperwork — is significant as it applies to every person in judicial custody granted bail or suspension of sentence, making the restoration of liberty swifter and more accessible.

It came as the bench of Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Mandeep Pannu directed the suspension of a convict’s life term in an attempt to murder and kidnapping for ransom case registered at a police station in Gurugram in May 2018.

Considering that the appeal might take a long time to come up for actual hearing, the bench observed that the case involved a ransom amount of Rs 50,000. The court also noted that the victim had sustained a gunshot injury on the right thigh — a non-vital part of the body — and that the convict had already spent more than seven years without remission.

The bench, without commenting on the merits of the case, made it clear that the sentence would remain suspended in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the matter, with the order taking effect from the moment it was uploaded on the high court’s official website.

“To ensure that every person in judicial custody, who has been granted bail or whose sentence has been suspended gets back their liberty without any delay, it is appropriate that whenever the bail order or the orders of suspension of sentence are not immediately sent by the registry, computer systems, or public prosecutor, then in such a situation, to facilitate the immediate restoration of the liberty granted by any court, the downloaded copies of all such orders, subject to verification, must be accepted by the court before whom the bail bonds are furnished,” the bench asserted.

Before parting with the case, the bench clarified that the order’s certified copy would not be required for furnishing bonds. An advocate for the convict could download the order along with the case status from the high court’s official website and attest it as a true copy. If required, the attesting officer could verify its authenticity online and use the downloaded copy for attesting bonds.