In a criminal appeal concerning the power of High Court or Sessions Court to grant an interim order of stay of an order granting bail till the disposal of the application for cancellation of bail under Section 439(2) of the CrPC, the Division Bench of Justice A.S. Oka & Justice Augustine George Masih, has held that :

In an application under Section 439(2) of the Cr PC or other proceedings filed seeking cancellation of bail, the power to grant an interim stay of operation of order to bail can be excercised only in exceptional cases when a very strong prima facie case of the existence of the grounds for cancellation of bail is made out. While granting stay of an order of grant of bail, the court must record brief reasons for concluding that the case was an exceptional one and a strong prima facie case is made out.

As a normal rule, the exparte stay of the bail order should not be granted. The said power can be exercised only in rare and exceptional cases where the situation demands the passing of such a drastic order. Where such a drastic exparte order of stay is passed, it is the duty of the Court to immediately hear the accused, on the continuation of the interim relief. When the Court exercises the power of granting exparte ad interim stay of an order granting bail, the Court is duty bound to record reasons why it to the conclusion that it was a very rare and exceptional case where a drastic order of exparte interim stay was warrranted. 

The Supreme Court was hearing Criminal Appeal: Parvinder Singh Khurana v. Enforcement Directorate.

By Sonam Pandey, Law Intern