Practice of bypassing bail condition by first agreeing to deposit, then backtracking, is Deprecated: SC
The Supreme Court, in Kundan Singh v. The Superintendent of CGST and Central Excise on June 23, 2025, criticized the practice of offering voluntary monetary deposits during bail hearings and then attempting to retract them. The case involved Kundan Singh, arrested for GST evasion, whose counsel offered a ₹2.5 crore deposit during his bail hearing in addition to a previously deposited ₹2.86 crore. The High Court granted bail based on this offer, with conditions for immediate and subsequent deposits. Kundan Singh later sought to modify the order, citing personal difficulties, and then challenged the conditions as “onerous” and claimed his counsel lacked authority for the initial monetary offer. The Supreme Court observed that such conduct prevents courts from assessing bail applications purely on their merits and undermines judicial integrity. It noted that the petitioner’s initial modification plea did not claim lack of authority but only sought deferment. Consequently, the Supreme Court set aside both the original bail order and the modification, remanding the matter to the High Court for a fresh consideration of bail on its merits, independent of any prior monetary offers.
Facts:
Kundan Singh (“the Petitioner”) was arrested on March 27, 2025 for alleged offences under Sections 132(1)(a), 132(1)(i), and 132(5) of the CGST Act, involving tax evasion of ₹13.73 crores. During the bail hearing before the High Court, his counsel submitted that ₹2.86 crores had already been deposited and offered to deposit an additional ₹2.5 crores, without prejudice to his defence. Based on this voluntary offer, the High Court granted bail on May 8, 2025, requiring immediate deposit of ₹50 lakhs before release and the balance within 10 days.
Subsequently, a modification petition was filed citing personal difficulties (wife’s pregnancy and father’s illness), seeking deferment of the ₹50 lakh deposit to post-release. The High Court accepted this request on May 14, 2025 but maintained the 10-day time limit for full deposit.
The present SLP by the Petitioner challenged this modified bail order, arguing that the bail condition was onerous and the counsel had no authority to offer monetary deposit.
Issue:
Whether a voluntary offer to deposit substantial sums during bail hearing, later reneged upon by the petitioner, can be a ground to challenge the bail order as containing “onerous conditions?
Held:
The Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP (Crl.) No.9111 of 2025 held as under:
- Observed that, this case illustrates a recurring issue where parties, through counsel, voluntarily offer monetary deposits during bail hearings, which forecloses the Court from assessing bail on merits. Later, they challenge these very conditions as onerous.
- Held that, “onerous conditions” cannot be imposed for bail and the voluntariness of the deposit is key. However, what is troubling is the petitioner’s attempt to renege on the voluntary commitment made by his own counsel.
- Noted that, the counsel for the petitioner never claimed lack of authority in the modification petition; rather, they merely sought deferment of payment on compassionate grounds.
- Held that, it strongly deprecates the practice of approbating and reprobating and emphasized that such conduct undermines judicial sanctity.
- Further directed that, both the bail order dated May 8, 2025 and the modification order dated May 14, 2025 be set aside, and the matter be remanded to the High Court for fresh consideration on merits, uninfluenced by any previous observations and also granted limited interim protection from surrender to the petitioner until the first listing before the High Court.
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