Bail In Crime Essay

II. GROUND REALITIES

The practice that invariably seems to operate in the enforcement of criminal law is to arrest a person accused of a crime. The person is then taken to the police station. Thus apprehended, he is either released on bail or is detained in the police lock up pending his production before the court. Use of discretion by the police to grant or refuse bail arises at this stage.

The question of granting bail in bailable offences is considered and taken up as a matter of right for the arrested person. The practice is however, marked with certain inefficient and dishonest features, in as much as the discretion is affected to yield expeditious results at the instances and pressure of influential recommendations or through some settlement of pecuniary gains transacted between the agents of the parties concerned.

In case of offences alleged to be of a non- bailable nature, the practice is to detain the arrested person in the lock up for an unduly long period for standing his trial. No formal case is registered. The arrested person is also not produced before the court on the expiry of 24 hours after his arrest. A large number of these

The perspectives are at times lost and the bail process has either been used to give an over emphasis either to liberty of the individual or to the security of the state. The malfunctioning of the administrative machinery and its loose control over the law enforcement agencies have brought to the fore instance where judicial action to protect personal liberty in the wake of growing awareness of human rights has hardly been a redeeming feature. This approach has resulted in some imbalances in the mechanism, system and process of bail, which is a vital component of the machinery geared to serve the ends of criminal justice. This perspective has to remain constantly in view while understanding the working of the bail