Anticipatory bail can be maintained even if charge sheet filed in lower court, says Uttarakhand HC

The Uttarakhand High Court has held that anticipatory bail of an accused can be maintained even after the filing of a charge sheet in a lower court. Justices Sanjay Kumar Mishra and Alok Verma of the high court gave the opinion recently on a bunch of anticipatory bail applications, including that of an advocate who is accused in a dowry death case.

The applications had been referred to the by Justice Ravindra Maithani seeking its guidance on the maintainability of an anticipatory bail even after filing of a charge sheet in a lower court.

The high court cited the Supreme Court's rulings in the cases of Bharat Chaudhary vs State of Bihar 2003 and Vinod Kumar Sharma vs government of Uttar Pradesh 2021 in support of its opinion.

The apex court had held that the anticipatory bail of the accused can be maintained even after the charge sheet has been filed in the lower court.

After giving its opinion, the division bench remanded the petitions back to the single bench for regular hearing.

Advocate Dushyant Mainali informed that a case was registered against advocate Saubhagya Bhagat in a dowry death case lodged at Kotwali of Jwalapur Haridwar.

The accused, being an advocate, was seen on the Supreme Court premises in CCTV footage on the day of the incident. Bhagat had earlier got anticipatory bail from the high court.

After a charge sheet was filed against him in the lower court, he had applied that his anticipatory bail be maintained.