Adding offence to FIR does not nullify anticipatory bail: Karnataka High Court

Bengaluru: Adding an offence to an FIR subsequently will not mean that anticipatory bail loses its efficacy, the Karnataka High Court has said in a recent judgement.

The court said the prosecution can move an application for cancellation of bail in accordance with the law, if it so desires, and then file a remand application seeking police custody.

The petitioner, Aravind Kumar R, is Managing Director of Virtue Infra Builders Pvt Ltd in JP Nagar.

The JP Nagar police had registered an FIR in November 2025 based on a complaint by N Asha, alleging that Kumar and his colleagues cheated her by not handing over a house site even after receiving Rs 17 lakh.

Kumar moved the trial court and was granted anticipatory bail in December 2025.

During the subsistence of the anticipatory bail, JP Nagar police sought the court's permission to add offences under the Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Establishments (KPIDFE) Act.

After permission was granted and sections were added to the FIR, police filed a remand application before the very court that had granted anticipatory bail, seeking police custody for the purpose of investigation. The petitioner challenged the order granting custody for 14 days, notwithstanding the subsistence of the anticipatory bail.

Justice M Nagaprasanna noted that mere inclusion of an offence will not mean that the order granting anticipatory bail will vanish into thin air.

"While in subsistence (of anticipatory bail), merely because BUDS Act or KPIDFE Act was invoked, the court concerned could not have blissfully ignored its own order granting anticipatory bail to the petitioner. Anticipatory bail, by its nature itself, is in anticipation or apprehension of arrest, whether crime is registered or is to be registered. In the light of the subsistence of the anticipatory bail, petitioner having been handed over to police custody on a remand application is, on the face of it, illegal," the court said.

The court cited an Apex Court judgement and said that an anticipatory bail once granted would be deemed to be in operation, notwithstanding even the filing of the charge sheet, unless there is any supervening circumstance leading to cancellation of the anticipatory bail, on an application by the prosecution or by a petition before the superior court.

The court conceded the submission by the Additional State Public Prosecutor that Section 9 of the KPIDFE Act bars grant of anticipatory bail.

"While that may be the fact, the KPIDFE Act is added or inserted later by the permission of the court, not when the crime is registered and the anticipatory bail was granted. An addition of an offence to the FIR later will not mean that anticipatory bail would lose its efficacy. Therefore, it was for the prosecution to get the bail cancelled in accordance with law, if they so desire and then file a remand application seeking police custody," Justice Nagaprasanna said.