SC sets aside perverse bail for man who allegedly killed witness
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has set aside an order of the Madras High Court granting bail to a man who was accused of murdering a key eyewitness in an attempt-to-murder case when he was out on bail. After the alleged murder, the trial court had cancelled his bail, but the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had overruled the trial court order, and had restored the bail of the accused. The appeal was filed in the Supreme Court this year against that HC order. Noting that the bail order of the HC was vitiated by perversity, arbitrariness and non-application of mind, a two-judge bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan recently said that the Madras HC had granted bail to the main accused, Gopalakrishnan, and others in the attempt to murder case without considering the fact that the main suspect was also accused of murdering a key eyewitness while he was out on bail. The apex court bench then directed the accused to surrender within two weeks before the trial court. The appellant, Lakshmanan, had been assaulted along with his friend Suresh on February 24, 2020, allegedly by a group led by the first accused, Gopalakrishnan. The attack, which included caste-based abuses, was registered under various sections of the IPC including 307 (attempt to murder) and Section 3(2)(va) of the SC/ST (POA) Act. The accused were granted bail by the trial court in September 2020. While the trial was pending, the accused allegedly murdered Suresh on December 18, 2022. Consequently, a new FIR (Crime No. 202 of 2022) was registered under Section 302 IPC. Citing this grave turn of events, the HC had initially cancelled the earlier bail on March 31, 2023. However, in April 2025, the same HC bench re-granted bail in connection with the earlier case (Crime No. 39/2020) without accounting for this development, leading to the present challenge before the SC. The main thrust of the appellants argument was that the liberty of the accused had already been misused, and their release posed an existential threat to the fairness of the trial and safety of remaining witnesses. It was also argued that the HC erred in mechanically clubbing two distinct cases for a joint trial without legal basis. The respondents/accused are directed to surrender before the jurisdictional trial court within a period of two weeks from today. In the event of their failure to do so, the trial court shall take appropriate steps in accordance with law to secure their custody, the SC said.
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