Lacking extra copies of chargesheet no ticket to default bail: SC
The Supreme Courtroom has held that an accused can’t declare the good thing about statutory or default bail merely as a result of the investigating company did not file extra copies of the chargesheet for provide to the accused, so long as the chargesheet itself was filed earlier than the courtroom inside the prescribed 60- or 90-day interval.
In a ruling on Wednesday, a bench of justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh mentioned that the best to default bail flows from the investigating company’s failure to finish the investigation and file the police report inside the statutory interval, and never from subsequent procedural lapses in supplying copies of the chargesheet.
“The non-filing of extra copies of the charge-sheet…wouldn’t vitiate the chargesheet/police report itself,” held the bench, including that “the best to default bail arises when the chargesheet will not be filed inside a interval of sixty or ninety days, as relevant.”
The judgment settles an essential subject arising beneath the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which, not like the erstwhile Code of Prison Process (CrPC), particularly requires investigating officers to submit enough copies of the police report and accompanying paperwork to allow their provide to the accused. The courtroom was referred to as upon to resolve whether or not failure to adjust to this newly launched requirement would entitle an accused to default bail.
Answering the query within the damaging, the bench mentioned that the extra obligation created beneath the BNSS can’t be equated with the consequence envisaged beneath the default bail provision.
“As soon as the chargesheet is filed, in compliance with the shape prescribed beneath Part 193(3) BNSS, inside the aforesaid interval, the best to default bail ceases. Non-compliance with Part 193(8) of the BNSS (concerning provide of extra copies) can’t be construed to provide the identical consequence as Part 187(3),” mentioned the judgment.
The ruling got here on an enchantment filed by Shaurya Sunil Kumar Singh, an accused in a CBI case involving an alleged cyber fraud and mule account racket. Singh was arrested on July 13, 2025, and the CBI filed its chargesheet earlier than the expiry of the statutory interval on September 2, 2025. Nevertheless, copies of the chargesheet have been equipped to him solely on September 23. Claiming that the investigating company had neither filed nor equipped the extra copies inside time, Singh sought default bail beneath Part 187(3) of the BNSS.
Each the trial courtroom and the Bombay excessive courtroom rejected his plea, holding that default bail is accessible solely the place the chargesheet itself will not be filed inside the prescribed time. The Supreme Courtroom affirmed these findings.
Analyzing the scheme of the BNSS, the courtroom famous that whereas Part 230 now requires the Justice of the Peace to furnish copies of the police report and associated paperwork to the accused inside 14 days of manufacturing or look, that provision operates independently of the statutory proper to default bail.
The bench noticed that the provisions governing default bail beneath the BNSS stay considerably an identical to these beneath the CrPC, regardless of adjustments in phrasing. It additionally famous that whereas BNSS introduces an extra requirement of submitting spare copies of the police report, it doesn’t alter the legislative scheme governing default bail.
Reiterating settled rules, the courtroom mentioned default bail is an “indefeasible proper” flowing from Article 21 of the Structure, however one which exists solely till the investigation culminates within the submitting of a sound police report.
Counting on earlier selections and authorized rules, the bench held that the CBI had filed a sound police report in compliance with Part 193(3) of the BNSS on September 2, 2025, inside the prescribed statutory interval. Consequently, the appellant’s proper to default bail stood extinguished on that date, and Singh’s treatment thereafter lay in in search of common bail on deserves moderately than invoking statutory bail.
