DATE: 09/01/2026
COURT: Supreme Court of India
BENCH: Justice Vikram Nath and Justice
Sandeep Mehta
FACTS:
An FIR No. 527 of 2025 was registered on 10
March 2025 at the Cyber Crimes Police Station, Hyderabad, against unknown
persons for offences under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000
and Sections 352 and 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, based on a
complaint by Mr. S. Kailash. During investigation, the appellants, Pogadadabnda
Revathi and Bandi Sandhya, were arrested and produced before the XII Additional
Chief Judicial Magistrate, Hyderabad, on 12 March 2025, who remanded them to judicial
custody. On 13 March 2025, the investigating officer sought police custody for
five days, which was rejected by the Magistrate on 17 March 2025 after noting
that substantial investigation had already been completed and incriminating
materials had been seized. On the same day, the appellants were granted regular
bail.
Aggrieved by the rejection of police
custody, the State filed a revision petition before the Sessions Court, which
allowed the revision nearly six months later and directed police custody of the
appellants for three days. This order was passed despite the appellants being
on bail. The appellants challenged the Sessions Court’s order before the High
Court, which dismissed their petition. Consequently, the appellants approached
the Supreme Court by way of a Special Leave Petition challenging the orders of
the Sessions Court and the High Court directing police custody after grant of
bail.
ISSUES:
The principal issue before the Court was
whether police custody of accused persons could be granted by a revisional
court after the Magistrate had earlier declined police custody and after the
accused had been enlarged on regular bail, without first seeking cancellation
of bail, and whether such grant of police custody amounted to an indirect and
impermissible cancellation of bail.
JUDGEMENT WITH REASONING:
The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and
set aside the orders of the High Court dated 13 October 2025 and the Sessions
Court dated 26 September 2025. It held that the grant of police custody after the
accused had already been released on bail was legally unsustainable and
amounted to an indirect cancellation of bail without following due process.
The Court observed that the discretion to
grant or refuse police custody lies primarily with the Magistrate, and once
such discretion is exercised by assigning cogent reasons, a revisional court
ought not to interfere unless the order is perverse or suffers from gross
illegality. In the present case, the Magistrate had specifically noted that
extensive investigation had already been conducted, confessional statements
recorded, and several incriminating electronic devices seized. The Sessions
Court, while allowing the revision, failed to properly consider or engage with
the Magistrate’s detailed reasoning and instead mechanically concluded that
further recoveries and interrogation were required, which the Supreme Court
found to be factually incorrect and perverse.
Further, the Court emphasized that the
appellants had already been granted regular bail, which remained unchallenged.
Granting police custody after six months would necessarily curtail their
liberty and effectively nullify the bail order. Relying on Satyajit Ballubhai
Desai v. State of Gujarat, the Court reiterated that police custody cannot be
granted while a bail order subsists, unless bail is first cancelled in
accordance with law. Any such grant of police custody would amount to indirect
cancellation of bail, which is impermissible under the scheme of criminal
procedure. Since neither the Sessions Court nor the High Court followed this
settled legal principle, their orders were held to be unsustainable.
ANALYSIS:
This decision reinforces the foundational
principle that personal liberty, once protected by a valid order of bail,
cannot be curtailed indirectly through procedural shortcuts. The Supreme Court
firmly located the power to grant police custody within the discretionary
domain of the Magistrate during the initial stages of investigation and
underscored that such discretion, when exercised with reasoned justification,
deserves judicial deference. By intervening without demonstrating perversity or
illegality in the Magistrate’s order, the Sessions Court exceeded the
permissible limits
of
revisional jurisdiction. The ruling thus strengthens the hierarchy of criminal
courts and preserves the sanctity of reasoned judicial orders at the first
remand stage.
Equally significant is the Court’s
articulation of the legal incompatibility between subsisting bail and
subsequent police custody. The judgment clarifies that police custody
necessarily involves deprivation of liberty and therefore cannot coexist with
an operative bail order unless bail is first cancelled in accordance with
settled legal standards. By treating post-bail police custody as an indirect cancellation
of bail, the Court closed a procedural loophole that could otherwise be
exploited to undermine individual liberty. The reliance on Satyajit Ballubhai
Desai v. State of Gujarat situates the decision within a consistent line of
authority, reaffirming that investigative convenience cannot override
constitutional and statutory safeguards governing arrest, detention, and bail.
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