In a Domestic Violence Lawsuit lodged by wife, a husband had approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail apprehensive detention. The court noted that a divorce case between the parties is pending when disposing of his pre-arrest bail appeal. The High Court, therefore, allowed the plea, but by placing a condition that Rs. 20,000 should be paid monthly to his wife. While he filed an appeal seeking to change the order, it was also dismissed.
In rebuking these orders, the husband approached the Supreme Court arguing that the proceedings for the grant of anticipatory bail are not the right procedure for the grant of maintenance and the High Court is not the proper venue to determine the maintenance question while hearing the application for anticipatory bail.
He relied on the judgment in Munish Bhasin & Ors. v. State (Government of NCT of Delhi) & Anr. (2009) to contend that conditions that can be imposed should be:
- to secure the presence of the accused before the investigating officer or before the Court,
- to prevent him from fleeing the course of justice,
- to prevent him from tampering with the evidence or to prevent him from inducing or intimidating the witnesses so as to dissuade them from disclosing the facts before the police or Court or
- restricting the movements of the accused in a particular area or locality or to maintain law and order, etc.
It was pointed out that, in the judgment in question, it would be outside the authority of the power imposed on the Court under section 438 of the Code to enforce any other condition on the accused. In that judgment, the Court set aside the order of the High Court compelling a husband to pay his wife and child support while granting him and his parents' anticipatory bail in respect of a complaint lodged by his wife.
Although dismissing his SLP, we see no justification to intervene with the impugned order passed by the High Court, the bench consisting of Justices NV Ramana, Surya Kant, and Krishna Murari observed.
