Rhetoric Versus Reality: The Case of Arnab Manoranjan Goswami vis-à-vis Munawar Faruqui

The importance of the phrase ‘bail and not jail’ has been constantly emphasized by the Indian Courts. The legal aspects of bail under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, coupled with the peculiar provisions provided under special acts like Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, etc. makes the Indian bail jurisprudence very complicated. Although the Indian Courts have attempted to remove these complexities by delivering landmark judgments and uniform guidelines, the situation has hardly ever improved. One of the reasons for this is the inconsistent approaches adopted by the Indian Courts, be it the Supreme Court or the High Courts while deciding subsequent cases of bail without justifying such inconsistencies. This is obvious from the decisions given in Arnab Manoranjan Goswami v. State of Maharashtra & Ors and Munawar Faruqui v. State of M.P. The current article is an attempt to analyses these two decisions to answer the question – why do uniform laws on bail apply differently to persons who are not so dissimilar?