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Life of Anticipatory Bail protection

The Supreme Court faced with conflicting views of the different Benches of varying strength on the issue of anticipatory bail, in SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CRIMINAL) NOS.7281­7282/2017
Sushila Aggarwal vs State (NCT of Delhi), had referred the following questions are referred for consideration by a larger Bench:

(1) Whether the protection granted to a person under Section 438 Cr.P.C. should be limited to a fixed period so as to enable the person to surrender before the Trial Court and seek regular bail.
(2) Whether the life of an anticipatory bail should end at the time and stage when the accused is summoned by the court.

A five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court the confusion.

Reiterating the law laid down by a Constitution Bench of the Court back in 1980 in the case of Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia and others v. State of Punjab (Sibbia case), the Supreme Court has clarified:


  • There is nothing in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to indicate that the grant of pre-arrest/anticipatory bail should be time-bound.


  • However, the concerned court has the discretion to impose conditions for the grant of anticipatory bail, including a limited duration of protection, on a case-to-case basis, depending on the stage at which the application for anticipatory bail is moved.


  • As a normal rule, there should be no such time-limit imposed in granting the pre-arrest protection.


  • The duration of an anticipatory bail order does not normally end when the accused is summoned by the court. However, it is open to the Court to impose additional restrictions if there are peculiar circumstances warranting the same.
However, the additional question raised by the Amicus Curiae as to where if new incriminating materials are found during the course of investigation, whether they could be relied on by the Court to cancel anticipatory bail which has already been granted, though the court did not specifically reply, but it appears that the fourth point would apply.

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