Criminal antecedents alone cannot justify denying bail where other circumstances favor release.

The petitioner was arrested on 19 December 2024 in connection with Crime No. 1045/2024, registered under Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (“BNS”), following the discovery of Pradeep’s body at a house where he lived with the petitioner.

The prosecution relied, among other circumstances, on statements by two neighbours that they had seen the petitioner and the deceased quarrelling on the night before the death

After the charge sheet was filed, the petitioner’s earlier bail application was rejected by the High Court on 27 October 2025; a subsequent application was rejected by the trial court on 14 August 2026

In this successive bail petition under Section 483 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (“BNSS”), the petitioner relied on the fact that the two neighbours had since been examined as prosecution witnesses and had turned hostile.

The State did not seriously dispute that submission.

The record also showed that the petitioner had been involved in three other criminal cases

Whether the witnesses’ turning hostile at trial constituted a sufficient change in circumstances to grant the petitioner regular bail in a successive application

Whether the petitioner’s criminal antecedents were, by themselves, a sufficient ground to refuse bail

Section 483 of the BNSS provides the basis for the High Court’s consideration of regular bail

The Court relied on *Prabhakar Tewari v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Another*, (2020) 11 SCC 648, for the principle that bail cannot be refused solely because an accused has criminal antecedents where the circumstances otherwise justify granting relief

The earlier rejection of bail had rested in part on the neighbours’ accounts that the petitioner and deceased had quarrelled shortly before the death

By the time of the successive application, those witnesses had testified as PW1 and PW2 and turned hostile, a material development that the State did not seriously dispute

The Court therefore considered the evidentiary basis relied on in the earlier bail decision to have changed.

It acknowledged the petitioner’s three other criminal cases but, applying *Prabhakar Tewari*, held that antecedents alone did not warrant refusing bail in the circumstances.

These included executing a personal bond of ₹1,00,000 with two sureties for the like sum; attending trial hearings; not threatening or tampering with prosecution witnesses or committing similar offences; not leaving the trial court’s jurisdiction without permission; and reporting to the Madanayakanahalli Police Station on the third Sunday of each month until disposal of the case.