Institute of Legal and Management Studies

The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to a 65-year-old cheating and forgery accused who suffers from 50 percent visual disability and has been in custody for 7 months.

A bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan observed that it is unfortunate that accused persons in such cases are compelled to approach the Supreme Court to seek bail.

The Court observed, “The offences are triable by court of magistrate. The appellant has undergone incarceration for more than 7 months. The age of appellant is 65 years and he suffers from 50% visual disability. It is very unfortunate that in such cases accused has to travel up to Supreme Court for getting bail.”

The appellant is being tried for offences under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) read with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC

The Court directed that the appellant be produced before the trial court within one week. The trial court has to enlarge the appellant on appropriate terms and conditions, including a condition to attend the trial court regularly and punctually on every date and to cooperate with the court for early disposal of the case.

Last year, a bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Augustine George Masih made similar observations while granting bail to an accused in a similar case, who had been in custody for over a year. In that case as well, the offences were triable by a Magistrate and the Court noted that even charge had not been framed despite the passage of several months.

While granting bail in that case, Justice Oka had remarked orally, “Very unfortunate that now people are not getting bail even in magistrate triable cases, very unfortunate. And people have to come to the Supreme Court for this.”

Case no. – SLP(Crl) No. 3838/2025

Case Title – Radheyshyam Sharma v. State of Rajasthan