After nearly three years and eight months behind bars, a man finally won his freedom—not through prolonged hearings or endless delays, but thanks to the Supreme Court’s sharp rebuke of the Allahabad High Court’s habit of postponing his bail plea 27 times.
The apex court made it crystal clear: when personal liberty is at stake, dragging cases like a slow-motion saga is unacceptable. The High Court’s repeated adjournments turned what should have been a swift decision into a marathon of inertia, effectively putting the petitioner’s right to liberty on hold indefinitely.
Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice AG Masih didn’t mince words. The petitioner had been locked away for over four years while only three out of 365 witnesses had been examined—a stark reminder of judicial lethargy where time and liberty both slipped away. The Supreme Court declared the pending bail application before the High Court “infructuous,” cutting through the red tape and setting the man free.
The case, tangled in allegations under the Prevention of Corruption Act, also exposed a peculiar irony: although the petitioner faced 33 other cases, 27 of them surfaced only after he was taken into custody, and he was already on bail in all those. The Additional Solicitor General’s plea to deny bail based on these multiple cases met a sharp counter: how could prolonged custody be justified when the system itself was failing to move?
With a pointed question—how can one expect progress on the 28th hearing after 27 adjournments?—the Supreme Court reminded the judiciary that personal liberty isn’t a game of patience. Justice delayed is liberty denied. And today, that delay finally ended.
