Overview
- Chandrachud outlined three grounds to deny bail: a real risk of reoffending, flight risk, or a substantial likelihood of tampering with evidence.
- He cautioned that national security statutes can invert the presumption of innocence and said courts must rigorously test such claims for necessity and proportionality.
- Invoking recent detentions such as Umar Khalid’s, he said that when a timely trial is not feasible, continued incarceration becomes punitive and bail should follow.
- He argued that uncivil or offensive speech is not automatically criminal and that arrest should be a last resort rather than a tool to silence dissent.
- Noting systemic strain, he flagged lower courts’ reluctance to grant bail, cited the Supreme Court’s disposal of thousands of bail pleas and accessibility reforms, and lamented the continuing non-criminalisation of marital rape.