Families arrive at this thinking bail is one thing that a lawyer either gets or does not get. It is three things. Anticipatory bail comes before arrest. Regular bail is decided on the merits. And default bail is neither — it is a right that arises purely because the investigation was not finished in sixty or ninety days, whatever the case against the person. There is a second right like it, under Section 479, for somebody who has already spent half — or, if never convicted before, a third — of the maximum sentence in custody. Both have to be claimed. And one of them dies, silently, on the day the police file their chargesheet.
Almost everything that goes wrong in these matters goes wrong in the first day, and almost none of it is about the law. It is about information nobody thought to collect and paperwork nobody thought to start.
Bail is three different things and the weakest-looking case can still get out on the strongest of them. Default bail under Section 187(3) turns on the calendar, not the merits — and it dies the day the chargesheet is filed if nobody claimed it. Section 479 releases an undertrial after half the maximum sentence, or a third for a first-time accused. And an order granting bail is not release: the bond and the surety are a separate job, so start them early.
Families spend the first fortnight not knowing what stage anything is at, which makes every piece of news frightening and every delay sinister. So here is the shape of it.
| Stage | What is happening | What matters here |
|---|---|---|
| Arrest | The person is taken into custody | Police station, FIR number, date and time — write them down |
| Production before a Magistrate | The court decides custody and its terms | Be represented here. This is the hearing that costs most to miss |
| Remand — police or judicial custody | Investigation continues | The sixty or ninety day counting runs through both |
| Investigation | Statements, documents, forensics | Regular bail is argued against this background |
| Chargesheet, or no chargesheet | The police report is filed — or the period expires first | The fork in the road. Default bail lives on one side of it and dies on the other |
| Cognizance and charge | The court takes the matter on and frames charges | A changed circumstance — often the moment to apply again |
| Trial | Evidence is recorded | As evidence is recorded, one common ground for refusing bail weakens |
Knowing which row you are on answers most of the questions families ask, and it explains why the same bail application can fail in month one and succeed in month five without anybody having found new evidence.
| Anticipatory bail | Regular bail | Default bail | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When | Before arrest | After arrest | After arrest, once a period has run |
| Decided on | Apprehension of arrest, and the merits | The merits — evidence, flight risk, witnesses | The calendar. Not the merits at all |
| What triggers it | You apply | You apply | Sixty or ninety days pass without a chargesheet |
| Strength of the case | Matters | Matters a great deal | Irrelevant |
| Can it be lost by waiting? | It can become impossible after arrest | No, you can apply again | Yes — permanently, when the chargesheet is filed |
| Explained | Our Section 482 page | Below | Below — read it even if you think it does not apply |
This page deals with the second and third. Anticipatory bail — where it is barred, how long it lasts, what to put in the application, which conditions courts have held excessive, transit anticipatory bail — is set out in full on our anticipatory bail page and is deliberately not repeated here.
The words mislead. “Non-bailable” does not mean bail is impossible; it means bail is not a matter of right.
| Bailable offence | Non-bailable offence | |
|---|---|---|
| Is bail a right? | Yes | No — it is judicial discretion |
| The real question | The bond and the surety | Whether, and on what conditions |
| What the court weighs | Little beyond the surety | Nature of the accusation, the evidence, flight risk, influence over witnesses, antecedents, and more |
| Where delay hurts | Arranging the surety | Everywhere |
Which category applies is fixed by the offence, not by how serious it feels to the family. That is the first thing an advocate establishes, and it decides almost everything about what the next week looks like.
There are specific safeguards and they are frequently not observed, so they are worth knowing rather than discovering afterwards.
Section 43 of the BNSS provides that no woman shall be arrested after sunset and before sunrise — and where exceptional circumstances require it, the woman police officer must, by making a written report, obtain the prior permission of a Magistrate of the first class within whose local jurisdiction the offence is committed or the arrest is to be made. The same section provides that unless the circumstances otherwise require, or unless the police officer is herself a woman, the officer shall not touch the person of the woman for making the arrest.
None of that automatically undoes an arrest, and this page will not pretend otherwise. What it does is give your advocate something concrete to raise at the first production, which is exactly the point at which such things carry weight.
Bail is discretionary, but the discretion is not unstructured. In Satender Kumar Antil v. Central Bureau of Investigation, decided on 11 July 2022, the Supreme Court laid down a framework that is now cited in bail applications every day.
| Category | What it covers | How it is treated |
|---|---|---|
| A | Offences punishable with seven years or less (not in B or D) | Most leniently. Ordinary summons first; then a bailable warrant; then a non-bailable warrant only if necessary. On appearance, bail may be decided without taking the accused into custody, or by granting interim bail |
| B | Death, imprisonment for life, or more than seven years | On merits, on appearance pursuant to process, considering the seriousness of the charge and the severity of the punishment |
| C | Special Acts with stringent bail provisions — NDPS, PMLA, UAPA and others | As with B and D, plus compliance with the statute’s own additional conditions |
| D | Economic offences not covered by those special Acts | On merits, as with B |
The Court said these directions apply where the accused was not arrested during the investigation and co-operated throughout in the investigation. That is the whole benefit, and it belongs to the person who attended when called and answered the notice. It is the strongest practical argument for complying with a police notice rather than avoiding it — which our notice and summons page and our FIR page both set out.
The judgment also directed that bail applications be disposed of within two weeks and anticipatory bail applications within six weeks. Treat those as what the Supreme Court directed rather than as a guarantee about your file — but they are worth citing, and a matter drifting far past them is a matter to raise.
If one section of this page is worth the whole of it, this is it, because it is the route most families have never heard of and it does not care how bad the allegation is.
Under Section 187(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, a Magistrate may not authorise the detention of an accused person beyond:
| Period | Where the investigation relates to |
|---|---|
| Ninety days | An offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life, or imprisonment for a term of ten years or more |
| Sixty days | Any other offence |
On the expiry of that period, if the investigation has not been completed and the report not filed, the accused shall be released on bail if he is prepared to and does furnish bail. The strength of the case is not in issue. The question is a date.
One live argument you should know about rather than be surprised by. The old Section 167(2) spoke of an offence punishable with imprisonment “not less than ten years”; Section 187(3) says “ten years or more”. The Karnataka High Court has described the change as only a play of words, meaning both point to a minimum of ten years rather than a maximum that reaches ten. The difference decides whether your period is sixty days or ninety, which is not a small thing, and this page takes no position on it. Put it to your advocate on the first day.
Nothing happens automatically on the sixty-first day. Somebody has to file.
In M. Ravindran v. Intelligence Officer, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (2020) the Supreme Court held that the right is availed upon filing the bail application and offering to furnish bail — not upon actually furnishing it — and that the prosecution filing a complaint later the same day does not defeat an application already made.
The position, going back to Sanjay Dutt, is that the right to default bail is extinguished once the chargesheet is filed, if the accused had not availed of it before then. It is a right with a closing door, and nobody on the other side has any reason to remind you it is closing.
We prepare the bail application and its annexures to your advocate’s instructions, with the certified copies that go with it. What decides this one, more than any drafting, is that somebody was counting.
The second right on this page, and it is new enough that it is still going unused.
Section 479 of the BNSS provides that an undertrial prisoner who has been detained for a period extending up to one-half of the maximum period of imprisonment specified for that offence shall be released on bail. And there is a better rule for a person who has never been convicted of any offence before: release on bond after detention extending up to one-third of that maximum period.
| Who | After | Released on |
|---|---|---|
| An undertrial generally | One-half of the maximum sentence for the offence | Bail |
| A first-time accused — never previously convicted of any offence | One-third of that maximum | Bond |
It does not apply to offences punishable with death or with imprisonment for life, and there are restrictions where more than one case or more than one offence is pending against the same person. The Central Government has told the Supreme Court that the provision applies retrospectively, so it reaches people who were already in custody when the new law came in.
The section also places a duty on the Superintendent of the jail to make a written application to the court for the release of the accused once the relevant period is complete. That is a genuine safeguard, and it is not a reason for the family to stop counting.
There is a ladder, and climbing it out of order usually means being sent back down.
| Rung | When | What the family should understand |
|---|---|---|
| The Magistrate before whom the accused is produced | The first hearing, and for offences the Magistrate can deal with | This hearing decides custody. Being unrepresented here costs more than anywhere else |
| The Court of Session | For more serious offences, and after a Magistrate’s refusal | Not an appeal so much as a fresh consideration |
| The High Court | Its own special powers in the matter of bail | Slower and more expensive; not the first stop |
Your advocate decides the rung. What you should take from this is that a refusal at one level is not the end of the road, and that families frequently give up at the first rejection because nobody told them there were two more.
This is the most avoidable night anybody spends in custody, and it happens every week.
The court grants bail. Everybody celebrates. And then the bond has to be furnished and the surety accepted, and that is a separate process with its own paperwork, its own verification and its own office hours. A Friday afternoon order with nothing prepared means a weekend inside.
We do not print the amounts, because the court fixes those on the facts. What we can do is prepare the affidavits, arrange the attestation and assemble the set so that nothing is discovered missing at the counter.
Broadly, a person the court is satisfied is solvent, traceable and responsible — usually a relative, a neighbour or a person of standing, who can show who they are, where they live, and that they have some means.
What is asked for varies by court and by the seriousness of the matter, which is why no list here is complete. Two things are worth knowing in advance. A surety is undertaking something real — they are answerable if the accused absconds — so it is not a favour to ask lightly, and the person should understand what they are signing. And a surety who later wants out has a procedure available for that; it is not a life sentence either.
If nobody can stand. Say so through the advocate rather than letting the order sit unused. Courts are aware that a bail order which cannot be complied with is not bail at all, and an application can be made about the amount or the terms. This is also precisely the situation the legal services desk at the court complex exists for, and it should be approached the same week.
Bail comes with conditions. Commonly: attend every date; do not leave the jurisdiction without permission; do not tamper with evidence or contact witnesses; surrender a passport where the court so directs; keep the court informed of your address and telephone number.
Read them, keep a copy, and give a copy to the accused person. Almost every cancellation application begins with a breach of something the person never actually read.
Courts have also held certain conditions to be excessive, and that line of decisions is set out on our anticipatory bail page rather than repeated here. If a condition imposed on you appears impossible to comply with — rather than merely inconvenient — that is something to take back to the court through your advocate, not something to quietly fail.
Granting is not the end of the matter, and a person on bail is not a person out of the case.
The usual routes to cancellation are breach of a condition, absconding or missing dates, approaching or threatening witnesses, tampering with evidence, and committing a fresh offence. Cancellation is a separate proceeding brought against you, and it is very much easier to avoid than to answer.
A refusal is a setback, not a verdict, and the worst response to it is to file the same application again next month in the same court.
Ask your advocate what has to change before it is worth moving again, and then watch for that change rather than for a mood.
A bail application takes time to be decided, and in the meantime the person stays where they are. Interim bail is relief granted while the main application is pending, and it is asked for in the same breath rather than as an afterthought.
It matters most in exactly the situations where it is least often requested: a medical emergency, a death in the family, an examination, a person who is the sole carer of a child or an elderly parent. Courts deal with these. What they cannot do is act on a circumstance nobody put before them.
The Satender Kumar Antil framework expressly contemplates interim bail in Category A matters on appearance, which is another reason to establish early which category your offence falls into.
That single fact runs through this entire page and it is worth pulling together in one place, because families do not realise how much turns on it.
And the reverse, said plainly: if there is a previous case or conviction, tell your advocate yourself, at the first meeting. It will surface, it always surfaces, and it does far less damage when it comes from you than when it is produced by the other side in reply.
One of the more useful arguments in practice, and one families stumble on by accident.
Where another person accused in the same matter, on the same footing, has been granted bail, that is a circumstance worth placing before the court. It is not a rule that everybody must be treated identically — roles differ, and a court can distinguish between them — but a genuine similarity of position is a recognised consideration.
So keep track of what happens to the others. Get the certified copy of any order releasing a co-accused, and give it to your advocate. This is a piece of information that costs nothing to obtain and that nobody will bring to you.
Two different places with two different regimes, and families are frequently told one when they are dealing with the other.
In police custody the person is with the investigating officer. In judicial custody they are in jail, under the authority of the court. Both are ordered by a Magistrate and both have limits. For the purposes of the sixty or ninety days described earlier, the counting continues — which is the point that matters most to the family and the one most often misunderstood.
The practical difference is about access: meeting, what may be handed over, and how to communicate. Those are governed by the rules of the particular institution, they differ, and they change, so this page deliberately prints none of them. Ask at the jail, or ask your advocate.
This has to be said because the relief of a release genuinely makes people forget it.
Bail decides where the person waits, not whether they did it. The case continues, the dates continue, and the trial has not begun. A court granting bail is not making any finding that the allegation is false, and the reasons recorded in a bail order are expressly tentative — written for that purpose and not binding on the trial.
Two practical consequences. First, do not stop preparing the defence because the person is home; the months after release are the cheapest time to assemble documents and trace witnesses, and they are almost always wasted. Second, be careful how the release is described to anybody — to an employer, to relatives, online. “The court has cleared him” is not what happened, and somebody will eventually produce the case file.
It sounds like the last thing anybody would choose, and there are situations where it is the correct one.
Where anticipatory bail has been refused, where a non-bailable warrant has issued, or where proceedings to declare a person a proclaimed offender have begun, continuing to stay away stops being a strategy and starts being the main fact against them. A person who surrenders and applies for regular bail is in a considerably better position than one who is eventually found — and the difference shows in every order that follows.
What precedes this — where anticipatory bail is barred, how a proclamation works, and the point past which the options narrow sharply — is set out on our anticipatory bail page.
On no other page of this site does money buy so much in so little time, because here what it buys is days of somebody’s liberty. An accused person is entitled to be represented. Legal aid exists at the court complexes and reaches persons already in custody. And it should be asked for at the very first production — not in three weeks, when the family has finally arranged funds and the custody order is already made. Some categories qualify whatever their income; others qualify below a figure the State Authority notifies, which is revised and which this page therefore does not print. If there is a remand hearing tomorrow morning and no advocate, that is tonight’s problem, not next week’s: walk up to the legal services desk, or tell us on the call and we will tell you which desk.
A person can be arrested in one State on a case registered in another, and the family is then dealing with two cities at once, usually with no idea which one matters.
Broadly, the case belongs to the court having jurisdiction over the offence, and the person is taken there — but the immediate production happens where the arrest was made, and that hearing matters. So the practical answer is that you may need somebody in both places for a short period: an advocate where the person physically is, and an advocate where the case is.
The mirror situation — a person outside Delhi who fears arrest on a Delhi case — is transit anticipatory bail, and that is dealt with on our anticipatory bail page.
Release is not the end of the matter, and the period that follows is where a good outcome is quietly thrown away.
| The question families ask | The answer to plan around |
|---|---|
| Does he have to attend every date? | Yes, unless exempted by an application filed before the date |
| Can he travel? | Within the conditions. Outside the jurisdiction usually needs permission — asked for in advance, in writing |
| Can he keep his job? | A pending case is not a conviction. Handle disclosure carefully and take advice before saying anything in writing to an employer |
| What about his passport? | Where the court has directed it to be surrendered, it is surrendered. Travel abroad needs permission |
| How long will all this take? | Nobody honest will give you a number, and this page will not either |
| Can the conditions be relaxed later? | Yes — on an application, with a reason, usually after a period of compliance |
The thing worth saying to the person themselves: the conditions are the case now. A year of attending every date and complying quietly is the strongest material there is for relaxing terms later — and a single missed date, casually, undoes a great deal of it.
One folder, from the day of the arrest, and keep it outside the house of anybody involved in the dispute. The FIR number and the police station. The date and time of arrest, and the date of first remand — on their own sheet, because the counting runs from them. Every court order with the date you received it. The bail order and the conditions. The bond and surety papers. Every application filed. Medical papers. Correspondence with the jail. And one sheet at the front with the dates: arrest, first remand, the sixty-day date, the ninety-day date, and the Section 479 dates.
That front sheet is not administration. On this page it is the case.
| What was done | What it cost |
|---|---|
| Nobody counted to sixty or ninety | Default bail available for weeks, never applied for, and gone when the chargesheet was filed |
| Waited for the court to release him automatically on the sixty-first day | Nothing happens automatically — the right has to be claimed |
| Went unrepresented to the first production | Custody decided at the one hearing where representation mattered most |
| Started arranging surety after the bail order | A weekend in custody after bail had already been granted |
| Avoided a police notice instead of attending | Lost the Satender Kumar Antil benefit, which depends on not having been arrested during investigation and on having cooperated |
| Never checked whether the person had a previous conviction | Missed the one-third rule under Section 479, which applies only to a first-time accused |
| Filed the identical rejected application again | A second refusal, and time lost that a changed circumstance would have used |
| Telephoned the complainant to settle it | A cancellation application |
| Paid somebody who promised to “get bail arranged” | A fraud, and no application ever filed |
| Never put the medical condition in writing | No record when it mattered |
The FIR number and a copy of the FIR where available. The date and time of arrest and of first remand. Every remand order and court order so far, with the date received. Identity and address proof of the accused. Identity, address and proof of means for the proposed surety. Any medical records. Proof of employment, dependants or anything else going to the personal circumstances the court will be asked to consider. Details of any previous case or conviction — tell your advocate about these yourself rather than letting the other side produce them. And the list of dates described above.
Several of those will have to be sworn, so budget a trip to an oath commissioner into the plan rather than discovering it on the morning of filing — the affidavit is often the last thing anybody thinks of and the first thing the counter asks for. Get a certified copy of every order as it is passed, not in a batch later, and have anything not in English or Hindi translated before it reaches the file.
Documents, and nothing beyond them. Nobody here is an advocate, nobody appears before any court, nobody speaks to a police officer on your behalf, and nobody here can obtain bail — a sentence worth repeating on this page more than any other, because it is the promise frauds are built on. What we do is the bail application and its annexures typed to your advocate’s instructions, the anticipatory bail documentation where the matter is at that stage, the applications — exemption, surety, modification of a condition — the petition where the matter moves up, the reply where a cancellation is sought, the affidavits and their attestation, the surety papers assembled, translations, certified copies, and the appeal papers later on.
Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it. The directory is free to open and free to write through, it runs A to Z, and no listing on it was bought.
Open any service page and that document’s price is on it, before you order and before you speak to anybody. Anything payable to a court, an oath commissioner or a government office is shown apart from our figure, because it is not our money.
You hear the whole figure before work begins and nothing is taken in advance. And on this page the useful thing is not the price but the sequence: tell us the date of arrest and the FIR number on the call. Those two decide what has to be done first, and here more than anywhere else on this site, the order in which things are done is the whole thing. If somebody is approaching sixty or ninety days, say that in the first sentence.
Listed alphabetically. We do not rank, rate or feature advocates, and nobody pays for a position here — the reason is on our Find an Advocate page. Neither reading a profile nor writing to somebody through it costs anything.
Those two facts decide the order of everything — whether a period is running, which application goes first, and what the surety file needs to contain. Send them with whatever orders you already have. We will tell you what a complete set would look like and what is missing from yours, and put the directory in front of you. We will not tell you that bail can be arranged, because it cannot be, and anybody saying otherwise is selling you something. Searching the directory is free and no commission from anybody on it reaches us.
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