Navendu Babbar vs State Of Nct Of Delhi on 18 June, 2020
(iv) Given this legal position, the nature of the offence committed
necessarily has a limited role to play, while examining the merits of an
application for bail. This is for a simple reason that the application
being examined by the court is not for suspension of sentence, but for
release during trial. If the court were to allow itself to be unduly
influenced by the nature of the charges against the accused, and the
seriousness of the crime alleged to have been committed by him, it
would result in obliterating the distinction between grant of bail and
suspension of sentence. Inasmuch as the applicant, in a bail
application, has yet to be found guilty of the offence with which he is
charged, the significance of the nature of the offence stand
substantially reduced, while examining the application for bail.
Courts have to be alive to the legal position - underscored in the very
first paragraph of Dataram Singh (supra) - that every accused is
presumed to be innocent until proved guilty.