The Supreme Court ruled that the high court made inquiries "unrelated" to the facts necessary to decide the application when considering the applicant's request for anticipatory release.
In a case involving anticipatory bail, the Supreme Court overturned the Patna High Court's decisions, notably the one requiring Sahara Group CEO Subrata Roy to appear in court.
While considering another person's motion for anticipatory bail, the high court issued the directives.
The Supreme Court ruled that the high court made inquiries "unrelated" to the facts necessary to decide the application when considering the applicant's request for anticipatory release.
In the current instance, we had seen that the high court issued directives, including to notify third parties to come before the court, and kept the application for grant of anticipatory bail waiting. According to us, such is prohibited and cannot be countenanced," a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and JB Pardiwala said.
It had previously stayed the high court's decision to include Sahara Credit Cooperative Societies Limited and Subrata Roy as opposing parties to a bail petition that was pending before it on February 11 and subsequently ordered him to appear in person.
The high court ordered Subrata Roy to physically appear before it on April 27. It noted that Sahara Group and other businesses, which had been accepting deposits up until around a month ago, were required to develop a strategy for restoring the investors' investments.