Confused Purposes and Inconsistent Adjudication: An Assessment of Bail Decisions in Delhi's Courts

A persistent issue in the Indian criminal justice system has been the over-incarceration of pre-trial detainees, which is inextricably linked with the practices of trial courts in deciding on the detention and release of accused persons pending trial. The present statutory law and judicial discourse provides little guidance on the process for deciding bail matters. There has also not been much effort to empirically research decision-making in such matters and/or the impact of these decisions on the pre-trial detainee population in prisons. The present study is an attempt to plug this gap, analysing ‘regular’ bail orders of Sessions Courts of Delhi available from the eCourts system between 2017 and 2019 for the offences of theft and rape. The data reveals a failure to recognise the fundamentally preventive purpose of bail, as well as to develop individualised and specialised processes in compliance with this purpose. Such failure in guidance has resulted in judges importing factors from the trial process that remain unjustified outside of the punitive detention process, such as guilt. In conclusion, we argue that a fundamental reimagination of the approach to bail is required – one that is distinct from the trial process and focuses instead on the individualised assessment of risk.