FROM HELL TO HEAVEN: THE CASE OF SATENDER KUMAR ANTIL V.

CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION ON BAIL

Overview

Hate the sin; not the sinner

- Mahatma Gandhi

Crime has always been a topic discussion for the academia. The individuals involved in

committing these crimes are and the subsequent treatment meted to these people in prisons is

often questioned. This brings us to the question of prisoners and their rights in prisons. It is

an established principle of law that bail is the rule and jail is the exception. However, this rule

is limited to the books of law whereas in reality, the jail is the norm and bail is the distant

dream. There are many stakeholders associated to this issue including the bar, the bench and

the government. The hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Satender Kumar Antil v. Central

Bureau of Investigation1 provided the much-needed guidelines on granting bail.

Facts

The Supreme Court since 2021 has given a trilogy of judgements on Satender Kumar Antil v

CBI case, wherein it has laid down specific guidelines for the police for making an arrest

under section 41, 41A and 60A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.2 Satender Kumar

Antil, the petitioner, was accused of seeking bribes while working as an Assistant Provident

Fund Commissioner at the Employees Provident Fund Organisation’s regional headquarters

in Noida. In the First Information Report lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the

petitioner (Satender Kumar Antil) was identified as an accused under section 120-B of the

1
Miscellaneous Application No. 2035 of 2022 in SLP (Criminal) No. 5191 of 2021.
2
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.
Indian Penal Code3 and section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. 4 After the investigation

is completed and the chargesheet is filed with the court, the accused was not arrested.

Summons were issued by the court for the presence of the accused. The accused failed to

present himself before the court and filed for an anticipatory bail application. The court

rejected the bail application and a non-bailable warrant was issued. The accused filed a

special leave petition with the Supreme Court where the Supreme Court laid down a set of

guidelines bifurcated into three sets of decisions that famously came to be known as the Antil

Trilogy.

Judgment

The court recognized that the bail is an essential aspect of human right which are available

even to an accused. Grating the bail timely to an accused is an essential facet of article 21 of

the Constitution.5 Considering this, the court laid down following guidelines which are

considered crucial in granting of bails:

 The Government of India may consider the introduction of a separate enactment in the

nature of a Bail Act so as to streamline the grant of bails.

 The investigating agencies and their officers are duty-bound to comply with the

mandate of sections 41 and 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 19746 and the

directions issued by this Court in Arnesh v. State of Bihar.7

 Any dereliction on their part must be brought to the higher authorities' notice by the

court followed by appropriate action.

3
Indian Penal Code, 1860.
4
Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
5
Article 21, The Constitution of India, 1950.
6
Sections 41 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.
7
Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, AIR 2014 SC 2756.
  A police officer can arrest without warrant in a cognizable offence under Section 41 of

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.8

 As per Section 41A, of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974 the police officer must issue

a notice directing an accused to be present before him in cases where arrest is not

required. Where such person complies and continues to comply with the notice,

he shall not be arrested in respect of the offence referred to in the notice unless, for

reasons to be recorded, the police officer is of the opinion that he ought to be arrested.

 The courts will have to satisfy themselves on the compliance of Section 41 and 41A of

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974. Any non-compliance would entitle the accused to a

grant of bail.

 All the State Governments and the Union Territories were directed to facilitate

standing orders for the procedure to be followed under section 41 and 41A of Code of

Criminal Procedure, 1974.

 There need not be any insistence of a bail application by the courts while considering

the application under section 88, 170, 204 and 209 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,

1974.9

 There needs to be a strict compliance of the mandate laid down in the judgment of this

court in Siddharth v. State of UP.10 The Supreme Court in this case held that “if during

investigation, there has been no cause to arrest the accused, merely because a charge

sheet is filed, would not be an ipso facto cause to arrest the petitioner”.11

8
Sections 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.
9
Section 209 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.
10
Siddharth v. State of UP, (2022) 1 SCC 676.
11
Id.
  The central government and the state governments will have to comply with the

directions issued by this Court from time to time with respect to constitution of special

courts.

 The High Court in consultation with the state governments will have to undertake an

exercise on the need for the special courts. The vacancies in the position of Presiding

Officers of the special courts must be filled quickly.

 The High Courts are directed to undertake the exercise of finding out the undertrial

prisoners who are not able to comply with the bail conditions. After doing so,

appropriate action will have to be taken in light of section 440 of the Code of Criminal

Procedure, 197412, facilitating the release.

 An exercise must be done similarly to comply with the mandate of section 436A of the

Code of Criminal Procedure, 197413 at the district judiciary level and the High Court as

directed by this Court in Bhim Singh v. Union of India,14 followed by appropriate

orders. In this case, to address section 436A Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974

legislative policy and alleviate prison overcrowding, court directed jurisdictional

Magistrates to hold weekly sessions in jails for two months starting 1st October 2014.

 They will identify undertrial prisoners meeting release criteria, submitting reports to

High Court Registrars promptly.

 Bail applications should be disposed of within two weeks except if the provisions

mandate otherwise, except an intervening application.

 Applications for anticipatory bail are expected to be disposed of within six

weeks except for any intervening application.

12
Section 440 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.
13
Section 436A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974.
14
Bhim Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1985 SC 1650.
 Analysis of the Case and its social implications

The incarceration of a prisoner is not only a cause of concern for him but for his family as

well. A person behind the bars not only gives rise to the legal complications but financial,

social problems to the prisoners as well. In India, the condition of prisoners in prison is

precarious. As per Prison Statistics India Report15, total number of prisons in India stand at

1330. These prisons can occupy 4,36,266. However, at the end of 2022- these prisons had

5,73,220 prisoners in them.16 The report also highlighted that Rajasthan has the highest

number of jails in India with 146 prisons; followed by Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh with

142 and 132 prisons respectively.17 The All-India average of prisoners in jail stood at 131

against the authorized strength of 100 jails. Another crucial aspect of this study was that in

these jails out of the total prisoners; around 90% of the prisoners were facing the trial. As per

the NALSA Guidelines on Undertrial Review Committee Mechanism,18 the undertrial

prisoners (“UTP”): convicts ratio stands at 67%: 33% in India. On the contrary, this ratio

stands at 31%: 69% for the rest of the world. This ratio was considered really alarming since

it shows that the conviction rate is low in India. At the same time, this violates the

fundamental principle of criminal law i.e. ‘innocent until proven guilty’. The high rate of

undertrial prisoners shows that even the innocent persons are being punished by putting them

behind the bars. Here, the trial court plays an important role. The courts were expected to

ensure compliance of section 41, section 41A- D of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974

strictly. Further, the ‘bail is the rule and jail is the exception’ should be followed in the real

spirit of the law not merely as the letters of the law. This can be done by arranging proper

training and sensitization programmes of the presiding officer of these courts. The Standard
15
National Crime Records Bureau: Ministry of Home Affairs, Prison Statistics India, 2022,
https://ncrb.gov.in/uploads/nationalcrimerecordsbureau/custom/psiyearwise2022/1701613297PSI2022ason0112
2023.pdf (December 1, 2023).
16
Id.
17
Id.
18
NALSA’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Under Trial Review Committees (UTRCs),
https://ghclsc.gov.in/notices/Notice-31-05-2019.pdf.
Operating Procedures [SOPs] provided that the public prosecutors should be made part of

these Undertrial Committees [“UTRCs”]. It had been observed that the public prosecutors

opposed every bail application irrespective of the merits of the case. This often results in the

unnecessary prolonging of the proceedings; causing delays in the bail granted.

The case of Satender Kumar Antil is a sigh of relief as it expressly recognizes the right of bail

of an individual. The case provides much needed respite not only to the prisoners but to the

jail staff as well. The jail staff is currently overburdened with the work as the number of

personnel deployed is less than the sanctioned strength. With the sanctioned strength of

91,181; only 63, 578 vacancies were filled up. 19 The prisons in India are considered as the

live hells on earth due to poor prison conditions. This causes a huge impact on the overall

health of the prisoners. Some prisoners even go to the extent of causing self-harm. As per the

National Human Rights Commission [“NHRCs”] data, around 1800 prisoners have died in

India in prisons every year; while this number increased to 2116 prisoners in the year 2021. 20

The suicide rate in prison is one and half times more than the normal conditions outside the

prison.21 The study of National Human Rights Commission showed that the suicides in prison

are more likely due to factors such as authoritarian environment, feeling helpless and

hopeless, separation from the family and friends, incarceration appearing as a cause of shame,

hostile environment in the prisons where there is no privacy as such, lack of facilities,

indifferent attitude of the jail staff, biased mindset created towards the Indian jails by the

media, civil society, bullying and harsh attitude of the inmates amongst each other and a

sense of lack of trust, long time taken in deciding the parole, lack of adequate medico-legal

facilities within the prison.22 Further, no concern to mental health of the prisoners is given. 23
19
Id.
20
Sukanya Shantha, NHRC’s Advisory to tackle an Alarming rise in Prison Deaths ignores ground realities,
https://thewire.in/rights/prison-deaths-mental-health-suicide-nhrc.
21
NHRC, Suicide in Prison (Prevention, strategy and implication from Human Rights and legal points of view),
https://nhrc.nic.in/sites/default/files/SUICIDE%20IN%20PRISON%202014.pdf.
22
Id.
23
Id.
The case will definitely be a milestone in the long run on the overall improvement in the

condition of prisons and the prisoners residing in them. Moreover, this case has also been

instrumental in changing the mindset of the presiding officers of the court who have

vehemently advocated in favour of bails being granted to the accused. Former Chief Justice

of India Dr. DY Chandrachud has motivated the trial courts to grant bails without any

pressure by stating that “we have to encourage trial courts to be more receptive to the need

for accommodating concerns of people who are seeking liberty.” 24 At the same time, he also

exposed the reality of getting bails in India by claiming that “People who should be getting

bail in the trial courts are not getting it there, as a result of which, they have to invariably

move the high courts. People who should be getting bail in the high courts will not

necessarily get it, as a result of which they have to move to the Supreme Court. 25 It is high

time that these prisons be transformed from hell to heaven and the persons residing in them

are treated as humans in reality. Only then, we can live up to the dreams of the father of the

nation Mahatma Gandhi who cared for even the last man standing in the line which is nothing

but the idea of ‘antyodaya’. This will ultimately lead to the idea of democracy which we

accept in India i.e. ‘to the people, for the people, by the people’.

24
Trial judges play safe by not granting bail, says CJI Chandrachud, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/tr
ial-judges-play-safe-by-not-granting-bail-says-cji-chandrachud/articleshow/112091451.cms.
25
Id.