The Allahabad Excessive Courtroom choose who requested the Chief Justice to not assign him the bail roster not too long ago — after one among his bail orders was described as “most surprising and disappointing” by the Supreme Courtroom — has overwhelmingly ordered bail within the dowry loss of life circumstances heard by his Bench.
An evaluation by The Indian Specific of the 510 publicly accessible common bail orders in dowry loss of life circumstances handed by the single-judge Bench headed by him between October and December 2025 reveals that Justice Pankaj Bhatia gave bail in 508 — or 99.61% of the entire circumstances.
Furthermore, the construction and language of the bail orders, in addition to the bond quantity ordered by Justice Bhatia, had been comparable throughout circumstances, although the circumstances of loss of life differed.
Whereas setting apart a bail order by Justice Bhatia on February 9, a Supreme Courtroom Bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Ok V Vishwanathan noticed: “We fail to grasp on plain studying of the impugned order as to what the Excessive Courtroom is making an attempt to convey… what weighed with the Excessive Courtroom in exercising its discretion in favour of the accused for the aim of grant of bail in a really severe crime like dowry loss of life.”
Ordering the bail to be cancelled and the accused to give up, the Courtroom famous that the postmortem attributed the loss of life to strangulation, and that the incident had occurred simply three months after the sufferer’s marriage, which invitations prices below Part 118 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. It stated the Excessive Courtroom was anticipated to look at the character of the crime, the punishment prescribed, the connection between the accused and the deceased, the place of incidence and the medical proof on document.
Days later, requesting the Chief Justice to not assign him the bail roster, Justice Bhatia stated that the Supreme Courtroom remarks had “an enormous demoralising and chilling impact” on him.
Justice Bhatia didn’t reply to repeated makes an attempt by The Indian Specific to achieve out to him, together with by mail. Queries despatched to the Registrar Basic of the Allahabad Excessive Courtroom went unanswered.
Story continues beneath this advert
The case which drew the Supreme Courtroom’s rap concerned the loss of life of Sushma Devi, 28, from Shrawasti district, whose physique was discovered on the verandah of her matrimonial house lower than two months after her marriage ceremony. Her father acknowledged that he had given Rs 3.5 lakh in money on the time of her marriage ceremony and that the groom’s facet had later demanded a automobile.
The Periods Courtroom had denied bail, noting the postmortem discovering of “asphyxia because of antemortem strangulation” and marks on her neck.
The circumstances
In every of the order handed by Justice Bhatia and publicly accessible on the court docket web site for the three months talked about above, prices had been filed below Part 304 B of the IPC (or Part 80 of the BNS), coping with loss of life alleged to be linked to dowry, and Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.
The common period of marriage earlier than the incident in these 510 circumstances was between three-and-a-half and 4 years.
Story continues beneath this advert
The candidates in these circumstances included 362 husbands, 68 mothers-in-law, and 63 fathers-in-law, other than sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law and different relations in smaller numbers.
In six circumstances, the deceased was recorded as pregnant on the time of loss of life.
In 340 circumstances, the reason for loss of life recorded within the postmortem report, as cited within the order, was hanging. Poison consumption appeared in 27 circumstances, strangulation in 16, burn accidents in 11, throttling and head accidents in 7 every, and drowning in 4.
Besides in 10 circumstances, the court docket recorded that the applicant had “no prison antecedents”.
Story continues beneath this advert
Of the 510 accused, 356 had spent lower than a yr in custody, as famous within the bail orders — of the 356, 5 had spent lower than a month behind bars, 104 had spent 1-3 months, 142 had been in custody for 3-6 months, and 105 for 6-12 months.
Fifty-two bail orders famous that the accused had spent 12-24 months in custody, whereas round 31 had spent greater than two years in custody.
The longest detention interval in these 510 bail orders was eight years, in a case the place the lady was stated to have died after falling right into a effectively.
Within the case of 71 orders, the time spent in custody was not talked about.
Story continues beneath this advert
The Part coping with dowry loss of life applies when a lady dies in unnatural circumstances inside seven years of her marriage, and there may be materials to indicate dowry-related harassment. Below the legislation, as soon as these parts seem on document, courts are required to presume that the in-laws precipitated the dowry loss of life, until rebutted throughout trial.
Whether or not this presumption arises relies on a court docket’s discovering of fabric exhibiting harassment proximate to the loss of life.
Within the 510 orders examined, bail was ceaselessly granted after noting the postmortem report, the time spent in custody and the absence of prison antecedents. In virtually half the circumstances (that’s, 253 orders), Justice Bhatia acknowledged that there was “nothing on document” to counsel harassment “quickly earlier than loss of life”.
The orders
In most orders, Choose Bhatia famous that “heard realized counsel for the applicant, realized AGA (Further Authorities Advocate) and perused the document”, and went on to say the FIR quantity, the Sections invoked, the interval of incarceration, the applicant’s prison antecedents if any, and made a reference to the postmortem report.
Story continues beneath this advert
The reasoning for bail adopted, whereas the concluding paragraph recorded the circumstances for the bail.
Other than noting that there was “nothing on document” to counsel harassment “quickly earlier than loss of life” in 253 orders, Justice Bhatia stated “nothing particular in opposition to the applicant” and “no particular allegation in opposition to the applicant” as causes whereas granting bail.
One of many orders (typical of others, with particulars modified), reads: “Contemplating the postmortem report and there being nothing in opposition to the applicant to counsel that quickly earlier than her loss of life, the sufferer was subjected to any bodily or psychological harassment in relation to any demand of dowry, and the truth that the applicant has no prison antecedents and is languishing in jail since 30.05.2025, I’m of the view that the applicant is entitled to be launched on bail. Accordingly, the bail utility is allowed.”
The concluding instructions are largely uniform throughout the 510 circumstances, with the bail order saying the accused was being launched “on furnishing a private bond with two sureties of Rs 20,000/- every to the satisfaction of court docket involved”, adopted by the situation that the applicant attend hearings, not commit an identical offence, and never immediately or not directly induce or threaten witnesses.
Story continues beneath this advert
The bond quantity of Rs 20,000 with two sureties seems in virtually each order granting bail in the course of the interval examined.
The place further info are mentioned, similar to dying declarations, viscera experiences, or statements of witnesses in some circumstances, these are inserted into the reasoning part. The construction stays the identical.
Some orders stand out. For instance, within the case in opposition to Virendra Rathor, the husband of a sufferer, the FIR famous that in a dying declaration, recorded “in entrance of the physician”, the sufferer stated that Rathor and his mother and father had “poured diesel and set her (on) hearth”. The postmortem recorded “superficial burn accidents” on the decrease a part of the physique.
The defence cited the youngsters’s statements which stated the sufferer “herself poured diesel on her legs”.
Story continues beneath this advert
Observing that the dying declaration was “at large variance with the assertion of the 2 witnesses” and that the youngsters’s model “finds corroboration with the postmortem report”, bail was granted.
The departures
In solely two of the 510 circumstances was bail refused.
In Sarvajeet Kumar’s case, whose spouse died after burn accidents protecting about 90% of the physique, Justice Bhatia’s order recorded that she had knowledgeable her father on the day of the incident that she was being assaulted and threatened.
The postmortem famous “ante-mortem burn accidents” and the scent of kerosene. The court docket held: “Contemplating the way wherein the offence has been dedicated, prima-facie, no good floor for bail is made out.”
Within the case of Rishitosh Yadav, the husband of a sufferer, the FIR alleged that he “precipitated (a) firearm damage on her head, which resulted in her loss of life”.
The postmortem recorded a “firearm wound on the left higher ear and contusion on the top”, and that “the reason for loss of life couldn’t be ascertained”.
The court docket noticed that “prima-facie, allegations for the offence below Part 302 IPC have been particularly levelled” and that the “postmortem report on document corroborates the allegations”. Bail was thus rejected.
