The Punjab & Haryana High Court recently reaffirmed that the court can refuse to grant bail if the accused conceals facts from the bench [Deen Mohd v State of Haryana].
Justice Pankaj Jain emphasised that Court can decline to exercise its discretion in favour of grant of bail if the application lacks bona fides.
“The law is well settled that where a process is “ex debito justitiae” the Court would refuse to exercise its discretion in favour of the applicant where the application is found to be wanting in bona fides.”
The petitioner was appealing an order of the session court refusing anticipatory bail on the ground that his first application was dismissed as withdrawn.
However, his affidavit stated that no other application had been decided by any court.
It was submitted that the trial court’s reasoning was not sufficient to decline bail, and since no other reason was assigned, the order deserved to be set aside.
Justice Jain disagreed while relying on a judgment of the top court in Welcome Hotel v State of Andhra Pradesh wherein it was held that a party that had misled the Court was not entitled to any consideration at its hands.
With this, the court rejected the application, reasoning that the petitioner had approached the court with unclean hands.
Advocate Rosi appeared for the petitioner.
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