Bail can be cancelled, annulled if passed without considering gravity of offence: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said, a bail order can be cancelled or annulled if it is a perverse one or passed on irrelevant material, or without fully appreciating the facts and circumstances of the case and the gravity of the offence.

A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and N V Anjaria allowed an appeal filed by Gulabkali against the Allahabad High Court's order of September 2, 2025, which granted regular bail to Aashish Gautam alias Arvind Kumar in a case of murder of her daughter Rajkeshar Chaudhary.

In its order on February 4, the court directed the prime accused to surrender within two weeks in the chilling murder case of Prayagraj.

It was claimed that the deceased had an affair with the accused respondent and were about to marry but in the meanwhile, his marriage was fixed with some other girl. As soon as the deceased got to know about this, she started pressurising him for marriage. The respondent, therefore, decided to eliminate the deceased with the assistance of his friends, Surendra Pratap, Rakesh Yadav and Deepak Chamar.

He allegedly committed murder of the deceased and concealed the dead body in the septic tank inside his house, covered it with sand and soil, laid bricks over it and poured a mixture of sand and cement on top so no one would know.

However, on a complaint, he was arrested on June 10, 2023 and the body was recovered allegedly at his instance from the tank.

Appellant's counsel Rajesh G Inamdar and Shashwat Anand contended the HC passed the bail order, without referring to the nature and gravity of offence and properly appreciating the facts of the case.

The respondent's counsel said, once the bail has been granted by the High Court, the relevant consideration should be the conduct of the accused thereafter.

Acknowledging the arguments, the court noted, the parameters for cancellation of bail and for grant of bail are different, however, it is equally well settled that there is distinction between the concept of setting aside an unjustified, illegal or perverse orders allowing bail in favour of accused and cancellation of an order of bail on the ground that accused has misconducted himself or certain supervening circumstances warrant such cancellation

The bench noted, the respondent has allegedly committed murder of the girl with whom he had an affair, only to eliminate her so that he can marry some other girl.

The court held, the present case is not a case where there is no evidence against him.

Setting aside the HC's order, the bench said, "We are of the considered view that the present is such a case where the gravity of offence and the material on record presented by the prosecution has not been considered by the High Court resulting in a perverse order without proper application of mind.''