Courts Can't Award Damages While Hearing Bail Pleas: SC

The Supreme Court has ruled that courts cannot order compensation while adjudicating a bail plea because they lack the jurisdiction to do so in bail proceedings.

- Press Trust of India

NEW DELHI: The ruling came while setting aside an Allahabad high court order directing the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to pay ₹25 lakh in damages to a man who was wrongfully arrested and imprisoned for four months in a drug-related case.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Manmohan emphasized that bail proceedings are strictly limited to the grant or refusal of bail and cannot be extended beyond the framework prescribed by the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), now replaced with the Bharatiya Nyaya Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS).

"Time and again, the act of courts overstepping the bounds of jurisdiction has been frowned upon. The instant case is another such example," the bench noted in a recent judgment.

The case arose from the Allahabad high court's May 2024 ruling, directing the director of NCB to pay compensation to a man for alleged wrongful confinement. The Union of India, through NCB, appealed against this order before the Supreme Court.