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11. Keeping in view of the above, the issue for consideration is whether the Court below can insist for deposit of money as a condition for grant of bail to the petitioners?

12. In fact, this issue is no longer res integra as in catena of decisions, various High Courts as well as the Hon?ble Supreme Court have consistently held that imposing condition of depositing money is excessively onerous and unreasonable and such condition may even amount to denial of bail itself.

13. In ?Sreenivasulu Reddy versus State of Tamil Nadu? reported in (2002) 10 SCC 653, wherein, this Court granted anticipatory bail to the accused on condition to deposit total Rs.50 crores apart from other conditions, which was also complied with by the accused, however aggrieved by imposition of such condition, the accused preferred appeal before the Hon?ble Apex Court. While dealing with the same, the Hon?ble Supreme Court had emphasized that while exercising jurisdiction under Section 438(2) of the Cr.PC, the Court ought only to impose such conditions/terms for enlarging an accused on bail as would ensure that the accused does not abscond. In para 6, it has been held as under:

16. In ?Keshab Narayan versus State of Bihar? reported in AIR 1985 SC 1666, the Hon?ble Supreme Court held that the condition to furnish cash security with sureties for the likesum appears to be excessively onerous and such conditions may virtually amount to denial of bail itself.

17. In ?Hussainara Khatoon (I) v. Home Secy., State of Bihar, reported in (1980) 2 SCC 81, the Hon?ble Supreme Court has held as under in para 3:

?3. Now, one reason why our legal and judicial system continually denies justice to the poor by keeping them for long years in pre-trial detention is our highly unsatisfactory bail system. It suffers from a property oriented approach which seems to proceed on the erroneous assumption that risk of monetary loss is the only deterrent against fleeing from justice. The Code of Criminal Procedure, even after its re-enactment, continues to adopt the same antiquated approach as the earlier Code enacted towards the end of the last century and where an accused is to be released on his personal bond, it insists that the bond should contain a monetary obligation requiring the accused to pay a sum of money in case he fails to appear at the trial. Moreover, as if this were not sufficient deterrent to the poor, the courts mechanically and as a matter of course insist that the accused should produce sureties who will stand bail for him and these sureties must again establish their solvency to be able to pay up the amount of the bail in case the accused fails to appear to answer the charge. This system of bails operates very harshly against the poor and it is only the non-poor who are able to take advantage of it by getting themselves released on bail. The poor find it difficult to furnish bail even without sureties because very often the amount of the bail fixed by the courts is so unrealistically excessive that in a majority of cases the poor are unable to satisfy the police or the Magistrate about their solvency for the amount of the bail and where the bail is with sureties, as is usually the case, it becomes an almost impossible task for the poor to find persons sufficiently solvent to stand as sureties. The result is that either they are fleeced by the police and revenue officials or by touts and professional sureties and sometimes they have even to incur debts for securing their release or, being unable to obtain release, they have to remain in jail until such time as the court is able to take up their cases for trial, leading to grave consequences, namely, (1) though presumed innocent, they are subjected to psychological and physical deprivations of jail life, (2) they are prevented from contributing to the preparation of their defence, and (3) they lose their job, if they have one, and are deprived of an opportunity to work to support themselves and their family members with the result that the burden of their detention almost invariably falls heavily on the innocent members of the family. It is here that the poor find our legal and judicial system oppressive and heavily weighted against them and a feeling of frustration and despair occurs upon them as they find that they are helplessly in a position of inequality with the non-poor. The Legal Aid Committee appointed by the Government of Gujarat under the chairmanship of one of us, Mr Justice Bhagwati, emphasised this glaring inequality in the following words: