A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court in Nagpur, comprising Justice Vinay Joshi and Justice Valmiki SA Menezes, recently asked subordinate courts not to use rubber stamps for deciding bail applications.
The Division Bench said there was no authorisation from the High Court to use rubber stamps for granting bail.
“We note that there is no apparent authorization of the High Court for the use of such rubber stamps to enable a Magistrate to grant bail. Grant of bail is a matter of discretion to be exercised by the concerned Magistrate, who is expected to apply his mind after considering the material on record and is required to be granted or rejected by a speaking order,” the court order said.
“A Magistrate’s order on a bail application certainly cannot be rendered on a rubber stamp as we note, has done in the present case. The bail order dated 09.03.2011 before us, which is in the form of rubber stamp does not contain any reasons for grant of bail,” it added.
The court was hearing an appeal filed by one Ashokrao Pawar who was detained by police officials under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug offenders, Dangerous Persons and Video Pirates Act, 1981.
In his plea, Pawar stated that the orders are not based on the correct record. He argued that none of the incidents formed the basis for passing of the detention order and recording the authority’s subjective satisfaction.
He also submitted that the said acts do not amount to acts causing a breach of “public order”, but are at the most acts in breach of “law and order” for which there is no jurisdiction under Section 3 of the MPDA Act.
During the course of the hearing, the court came across the bail order wherein a rubber stamp was used by the magistrate, leaving blank spaces which are filled by inserting the bond amount with no other details.
The High Court in its order asked the Registrar of the High Court to circulate the copy of the judgment among the district and subordinate courts while directing them to not use rubber stamps.
“We deprecate this practice, if it does exist in any of the Courts subordinate to this Court and deem it appropriate to circulate this judgment to all concerned District/Sessions Courts, which shall be sent by the concerned Registrar of this Court alongwith a copy of the bail order referred to by us in this judgment, with specific directions that the subordinate Courts/Magistrates shall desist from making use of such rubber stamps for deciding bail applications in future,” the order read.
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment