Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: July 7, 2022 at 16;47 IST
According to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the High Court’s discretionary power under Section 438 CrPC cannot be used after the Sessions Court dismisses an application for anticipatory bail.
When dealing with a bail application for a defendant charged under the Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989), the single-judge Bench of Justice Anoop Chikara noted that, after the Sessions Judge dismissed the application, the remedy is an appeal rather than going to the High Court with a similar petition.
The Court noted in dismissing the petition: “As a result of the petitioner choosing the wrong legal provision, the petitioner shall be at liberty to file an appeal under section 14-A of SCSTPOA and to enable the petitioner to do so, and there shall be a stay of arrest for two weeks from today.. If the petitioner chooses to appeal within the allotted time, the stay order shall be substituted by order passed in such an application of bail.”
The court further held that if the petitioner files an appeal within the prescribed period, the order issued in the bail application shall take the place of the stay order. If not, the stay order will be automatically vacated.
As a result, the court dismissed the petition in the manner described above.
