Will a law outlining grant of bail help India?

The bail provisions are statutorily incorporated in the code of criminal procedure and they are clear and lucid. There is no need to tinker with the general law and put a Bail Act in its place. As it is, there are several special statutes like The Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MACOCA), the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the UAPA Act and the NDPS Act, whereby the law on bail has been made needlessly stringent. Multiplicity of statutes will only cause more confusion in the matter relating to grant of bail.
Rebecca John, Sr Advocate

RC Chavan, retired HC judge
A standalone Bail Act would be problematic. Acts already contain provisions for bail. It would be difficult to make those provisions with a separate Bail Act, and would create more problems. It would be taking away discretion from the court, where only experienced judges make these decisions. Instead, the existing provisions should be strengthened. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has no provision for anticipatory bail.

Arka Maiti, Advocate in Calcutta HC
The problem in our Country is that the law enforcement agencies do not always differentiate between the various types of crime while making arrests. They take the same ham handed approach to every crime. An amendment already exists in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) 41(A), where police can question suspects without arresting them. If more police officers were made aware of this provision, it would mean less pile up of suspects in jail. With police officers using 41(A) in the true letter and spirit of the law, people wouldn’t get stuck awaiting bail.

The Supreme Court has already asked the state and union governments to sensitise law enforcement agencies about CrPC  41 (A). I believe that it is impractical to get a get a stand alone Bail Act. An amendment to the existing provisions would do just fine.

Perhaps if the law is made precise on the conditions of granting of bail, it would be better.

More than the change in law we need a higher judge to population ratio. Only then there would be less pile up of suspects in jail.