The bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan while hearing a petition filed against an order passed by City Court at Bengaluru granting bail to the accused in an FIR lodged in Rajasthan orally remarked during hearing to decide as to whether a court in another state grant anticipatory bail in an FIR lodged in another State.

The question before the Court was with regard to the limitation of a court while granting anticipatory bail in such cases. ASG Senior Advocate Vikramjit Banerjee who was appointed as Amicus Curie in the matter, argued that the court shall while deciding the law shall take an equitable approach so that the scope of "Transit Bail" as has been evolved by the judgments of the court is also there and such orders are not passed by any court.

The Court then remarked "I think we have to coin a new term 'Regular Anticipatory Bail' and 'Transit Anticipatory Bail".

Senior Advocate K. Paul assisted by Advocate on Record Rishi Matoliya emphasised in the court that there is no law laid down by this Hon'ble Court as to whether the court in different state is empowered to grant a regular bail in a case where the FIR is lodged in one state and the Anticipatory bail is applied in another state and all the High Courts have divergent views on this issue. It was argued that the High Court of Calcutta, Patna, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya and Gauhati do not permit the same but the High Courts of Delhi Bombay, Kerala and Rajasthan say that this is permissible.

The Court also raised its concern that we are in the age of social media and FIRs are lodged on any post on social media where the post is made in one state, the accused is in another state and the FIR is lodged in a third state, therefore, the strict interpretation of Section 438 CRPC cannot be permitted and scope for "Transit Bail" be left out so that the innocent person could be saved from false FIRs.

The hearing of the case is not concluded and the same is scheduled for 05.09.2023