Importance Of Bail

The Importance of Instrument of Bail

The importance of the instrument of bail can be well imagined from the facts that from the initial stage of accusation at Police Level to Apex Court and right for direction for anticipatory bail to special powers of High Court and Court of Session to grant bail and writ of Habeas Corpus and Certiorari have been provided to restore the liberty of the individual. Instrument of bail is a counter to the interest of society and the individual interest can be sacrificed for the interest of society. That is why the instrument of bail is cautiously granted by the authorities. It is Herculean task to keep the balance between these two contrary rights and the Rule of Law is the only yardstick to perform this task

It is only by accident that we can get a glimpse of the common cause of business, by which the ordinary thieves or murders were brought to justice. Ailvard’s case was a Crown and that in the struggle between the King and the suspected man; all advices are to be secured to the King, whose safety is far more important to the public than the life of such a questionable person as the prisoner.

(a) The Accusatorial system of trial: Discovery and punishment of crime has been treated as pre-eminently the affair of the government and has all its stages been under the management of representatives of the government (inquisitorial system). In England it has been left principally to individuals who consider themselves to have been wronged, the judge’s duty being to see fair play between the prisoner and the prosecution even if the prosecutor happened to be the crown (Accusatorial system).

(b) The development of physical sciences: the rapid growth of physical sciences and indeed of every branch of knowledge which has been one great characteristic of the history of the last two centuries naturally influenced the administrative of criminal justice as well. In criminal trials, questions of fact came to be investigated in the same spirit as other matters of fact. Prisoners were allowed to make their full defense by

Countries began to have specific configuration. They began to have a strong army and organized the police on which the government could rely. The maltreatment of the individual at the hands of state agencies in criminal matters became a common feature. It was realized that the state had become capable of inflicting so much harm on an individual accused of a crime that the need to arm him with some presumptions in his favour justified on the grounds of humanity and liberty.

Principles of natural justice were revived and slowly a number of rights were bestowed upon an accused person. Principle of presumption of innocence of an accused is of recent origin and is not much older than the 19th century. Prior to inception of nineteenth century, there was a growing demand that circumstantial evidence should be preferred with great caution and care when a man’s liberty was at stake. In the presumption of innocence prior to the proof of guilt, right to be informed of the grounds of arrest, right to release on bail before trial are some