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This is an archive article published on November 17, 2007

‘No magistrate can grant bail if doesn’t have the powers’

No magistrate can grant bail if he does not have the judicial powers to do so, the Supreme Court...

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No magistrate can grant bail if he does not have the judicial powers to do so, the Supreme Court observed on Friday as it declined to grant any relief to a suspended magistrate of Haryana. The latter had passed a bail order on extraneous considerations and without the judicial power to do so, following which he was suspended from the judicial services.

Rejecting the magistrate’s plea that there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations against him, the bench of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice R V Raveendran asked: “How can the Magistrate grant bail if he did not have the judicial power?”

The suspended magistrate, Ram Dhari Jatain, had challenged the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had justified his suspension from service on the basis of a report by an inquiry committee. According to the said report, the magistrate had wrongly exercised his jurisdiction for extraneous considerations.

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Jatain, who was posted in the Gurgaon District Court had granted bail to an accused in an excise case despite the fact that the matter was not within his jurisdiction. The inquiry against him substantiated the allegations .

The court was unfazed by the submissions of senior counsel Raju Ramachandran, who contended that the magistrate had granted bail to the accused as he had surrendered before him. “How can the Magistrate grant bail if he did not have the judicial power,” the Bench asked, declining the submission that he used to look after the work of another judicial officer, who often used to leave early as he was living in Delhi.

The counsel had also contended that the findings, including that the magistrate acted on extraneous consideration, did not have any evidence. The Judges even disagreed with the argument that suspension was an extreme punishment.

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