ALLAHABAD: Now no arrested person applying for bail in the state will have to compulsorily suffer 10 days imprisonment as the Allahabad high court has reduced the bail notice period from 10 to two days. Earlier, a 10 days notice was required to be sent to the government advocate on a bail plea before it could be taken up for hearing.According to Rule 18(3)(a) of the Allahabad High Court Rules, “barring exceptional circumstances, no order granting bail shall be made on an application unless notice thereof has been given to the government advocate and not less than 10 days have elapsed between the giving of such notice and the hearing of such application.”The High Court has now issued a notification amending the said rule, allowing an order granting bail to be made just two days after notice of the bail application is sent to the government advocate. An advocate, Syed Mohammad Haider Rizvi, had first brought the issue to the attention of the High Court through a representation made in 2016. Rizvi appealed to the Chief Justice of the High Court to amend Rule 18(3)(a), claiming it was unconstitutional and illegal per se and interfered with the fundamental rights of scores of innocent individuals.Rizvi’s efforts were taken notice of on December 4, 2017, when joint registrar (judicial) of Allahabad High Court informed him that the issue was under the consideration of the High Court.However, no action was taken for a total of 18 months since Rizvi’s first representation.Thereafter, Rizvi approached the Supreme Court in July this year. The Supreme Court disposed of the petition, directing the High Court to consider the representation and take a decision within six weeks. Hence, Rizvi moved final representation before the High Court.In the representation, he said that the provision which was inserted in Allahabad High Court Rules sometime in the year 1980, at a time when the united state of Uttar Pradesh was having a huge geographical area with no modern means of communications , and in the peculiarity of things as they stood in the said times, no longer exist now.He also pointed out that with the present technological advancements, instructions from even the most remote police stations could reach the government advocate with a click of a mouse, thus enabling detenues to get relief in the form of bail expeditiously.Rizvi also referred to a number of Supreme Court decisions that safeguarded the rights of detenues on arrest. Further, he pointed out that the impugned rule was inconsistent with Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which does not specify the period of notice that is to be given to the public prosecutor when an application for bail is made.Moreover, Rizvi shed light on the rules of different high courts across the country, none of which required a 10-day period for grant of bail.The High Court finally passed a notification amending the provision on September 19.The amended provision now reads that except in exceptional circumstances, no order granting bail shall be made on an application unless notice, thereof, has been given to the government advocate and not less than two days have elapsed between the giving of such notice and the hearing of such application.Lawyers said this is a major respite to thousands of innocent detenues, “who suffered because of this inherently illegal rule and languished in jail at least for 10 days without their matters being placed before the court for being heard”.

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