Faculty Seminar | Bail on Medical Grounds in India: A Search for Principled Jurisprudence

This week’s faculty seminar will be held on 9 August, 2023. Prof. Nanditta Batra will be presenting a paper titled ‘Bail on Medical Grounds in India: A Search for Principled Jurisprudence’. Prof. Nagaratna will be the discussant.

Abstract

The law creates a leeway for sick and infirm persons to obtain bail in otherwise hard cases due to their vulnerable position. However, the provision of obtaining bail on medical grounds has been under immense public scrutiny as it has been often observed that the accused with political patronage find it a convenient route to regain their liberty while others continue to languish in jail despite their precarious health conditions. Such a situation is an enigma to ‘Rule of Law’. In order to understand whether such an anomaly actually exists and the reasons for such anomaly, if any, I attempt to first systematically sketch the basic principles of law that the Courts must adhere to in adjudicating bail cases on medical grounds. I then map the actual practices of the Indian Courts and the degree of coherence in following a particular principle by empirically examining the data from cases decided between January2020 to August 2023.