Patna HC grants record 463 bails related to prohibition in single day

Patna: The Patna high court on Monday granted a record number of bails—regular as well as anticipatory—to 463 people in cases related to prohibition on a single day. It broke its earlier record of granting over 300 bails in a single day.While granting the bails, the court said most of the accused are jailed due to poor implementation of liquor law by authorities and also expressed astonishment that even in recovery of small quantities of liquor the accused are incarcerated.A single bench of Justice Rudra Prakash Mishra, while hearing a total of 508 cases related to liquor, granted over 463 bails, observing orally that poor implementation of liquor laws by the authorities have massively increased the number as well as burden of bail matters on courts.Justice Mishra also expressed astonishment that even in cases of recovery of small quantities of liquor, the accused have to remain in prisons. The court lauded the efforts of public prosecutors for facilitating swift disposal of cases at a “hurricane pace” by highlighting key facts such as the criminal antecedents of each accused, the quantity of liquor recovered, and the duration of the bail petitioner’s incarceration.Assistant public prosecutors (APPs)—Renu Kumari, Veena Kumari Jaiswal, Choubey Jawahar, Nityanand Mishra, Md Nazrul Haque Gulnar Begum and dozens of other APPs assisted the bench of Justice Mishra in hearing the case.