There are 2,000 bail applications pending at the Supreme Court because district court judges are scared of granting bail... New CJI Chandrachud explains why.
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00:00There is a sense of fear, that if I grant bail, will somebody target me tomorrow on
00:07the ground that I granted bail in a heinous case?
00:11We are going to render our district courts toothless and our higher courts dysfunctional.
00:41We are going to render our district courts toothless and our higher courts dysfunctional.
01:12The higher courts are getting flooded with bail applications.
01:21I have just taken a decision as Chief Justice of India that there are 2,000 bail applications
01:26pending in the Supreme Court, 3,000 transfer petitions pending in the Supreme Court, 5,000
01:31out of the total pendency.
01:33So, we decided at the full court meeting the other day that all benches of the Supreme
01:37Court will take 10 bail applications every single day.
01:41The idea being that we have 13 benches today.
01:44So, 130 bail applications will be disposed of, 650 at the end of one week.
01:49Hopefully, at the end of four weeks, of course, there will be fresh bail applications.
01:54But this turnover has to constantly be maintained of matters which are filed and matters which
02:00are disposed of.
02:02But the reason why the higher judiciary is getting flooded with bail applications is
02:07because of the reluctance of the grassroots to grant bail.
02:12And why are judges at the grassroots reluctant to grant bail?
02:16Not because they don't have the ability.
02:19Not because the judges at the grassroots don't understand the crime.
02:23They probably understand the crime better than many of the higher court judges because
02:27they know what crime is at the grassroots in the districts.
02:31But there is a sense of fear that if I grant bail, will somebody target me tomorrow on
02:38the ground that I granted bail in a heinous case?
02:47This sense of fear, nobody talks about, but which we must confront.
02:54Because unless we do that, we are going to render our district courts toothless and our
03:01higher courts dysfunctional.