A liberty secured through degradation is not liberation since there is nothing “free” about a freedom that humiliates. When constitutional liberty is attained at the cost of dignity, it is a release only in form, not in substance, as a man/woman may walk free, yet he/she shall drag the weight of his/her humiliation that will continue to blot a lifetime.

In a significant step to uphold the sanctity of constitutional liberty for all, the Supreme Court of India on 4^th April 2026 took suo motu cognizance of a deeply concerning issue wherein the Orissa High Court and certain trial courts granted bail to the accused persons contingent upon the condition of cleaning the police stations for two months. The situation became more troublesome when it was noted that six out of eight accused persons to whom such bails were to be granted belonged to the Dalit community while the remaining two were Adivasis.

 In contemporary times, such arbitrary, caste-based, and prejudicial policing, reflected through the actions of law enforcement authorities, results in the institutionalization of prejudicial attitudes towards a community, which are majorly confined to societal activities often reflected through the routine interactions with such marginalized sections. The bail orders raise grave concerns regarding the protection of vulnerable groups, while simultaneously questioning the bounds of judicial discretion.

The Factual Matrix

A report published by Article14 on 27th April 2025 documented the instances where courts in Orissa issued directions regarding the bail of certain protestors who were arrested post criminalization of anti-mining protests in the state, which required them to clean the police stations for two months in order to be set free. According to the report, eight such orders in total were passed between May 2025 and January 2026, wherein one of such orders was issued by the High Court of the state. The Supreme Court of India, on 4th May 2026, took suo motu cognizance of the case after the emergence of the report.

A two-judge bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi in the case titled Re Condition Being Imposed While Granting Bail by High Court of Orissa and District Courts in the State of Odisha and ancillary issues, while quashing all such conditions, stated, “We declare such conditions and any other similar worded condition imposed by state judiciary as null and void. Let the petitioners approach the Orissa High Court to forthwith delete such conditions and not substitute them with any other analogous condition. The accused shall remain on bail.”

Further, to condemn and prevent such “obnoxious” directions in the future, the court stated, “We are of the considered opinion that any other state judiciary shall not use such conditions of caste colour, which can generate social friction. Thus, let this order be made available to all judicial officers across the country not to impose such conditions.” 

However, as the saying goes, there is more than meets the eye. Such bail conditions represent a conflict between judicial discretion and the constitutional limits. Can courts impose any condition for the sake of “justice”? And where does this discretion convert into arbitrariness? The visible is merely a fragment of a larger picture. Rather than approaching it in isolation, the present case invites an inquiry beyond what is formally reported and recorded.

Statutory Contours Of Bail Mechanism

The concept of bail is defined[i] under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 as the release of a person accused of or suspected of the commission of an offense from the custody of law upon certain conditions imposed by an officer or court on the execution by such person of a bond or a bail bond. The mechanism of bail is generally understood in the context of the person accused of an offense; however, it transcends this individual-centric understanding. As it was held in the case of Kamlapati v. State of West Bengal[ii], bail serves as a synthesis of two concepts essentially, which are the personal liberty of the accused and the public interest in ensuring that such accused undergoes the established procedure of law. The object of bail, as described in the case of Sanjay Chandra v. CBI[iii], is to secure the appearance of the accused person at his trial by a reasonable amount of bail. The object of bail is neither punitive nor preventative. Deprivation of liberty must be considered a punishment, unless it can be required to ensure that an accused person will stand his trial when called upon.

Thus, the courts are empowered under section 480(3) of BNSS to impose necessary conditions in the “interest of justice”; however, this discretion is not unbridled. When the accused is compelled to earn his/her freedom by undertaking acts that are inherently humiliating, these conditions cease to facilitate justice. Rather, they tend to establish a sort of pre-trial punishment, which alters the entire nature of the foundational principle of criminal jurisprudence, that a person is innocent until proven guilty. As the court pointed out, “This unfortunate condition, in fact, is founded upon the presumption of guilt of the accused, as, in a way, a nature of sentence has been awarded to them.”

Since law presumes an accused innocent until proven guilty, bail conditions must by their nature remain reversible to make sure that upon acquittal the accused can be restored as far as possible to his/her original position. Conditions like the ones in the present case are irreversible in nature and thus assume a punitive character. Such conditions derive their rationale from entrenched prejudice, illegitimate discrimination converting the system of bail into conviction.

Constitutionality Of The Impugned Bail Orders

In common parlance, humiliation operates as the direct antithesis of basic human dignity. They are mutually exclusive; where one exists, the other cannot. Along with being a moral standard in societies, demand for dignity became a legally enforceable right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. The Supreme Court in the case of Francis Coralie Mullin v. Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi[iv], held that the right to life transcends mere “animal existence” and includes the “right to live with human dignity.” The court stated, “Such conditions, far from advancing the cause of justice, strike at the dignity of the accused and proceed on the premise of their guilt, which is totally impermissible in law.” The concept of liberty, therefore, contains the element of dignity. Where personal liberty is secured through state-sanctioned humiliation, it ceases to be liberty; rather, it serves as a clear violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

The cleaning of the police station by the accused as a “bail condition” amounts to “begar,” or forced labour, and is inconsistent with Article 23 of the Constitution. In People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India[v], the Supreme Court held that any labour without free consent is a direct violation of the right against exploitation. The term “forced labour” was construed widely to include a force that leaves no choice of alternatives to a person in want and compels him to provide labour. In the present scenario, faced with the prospect of continued detention, an accused is placed in a position where refusal to comply may curtail his/her liberty. With no alternatives in sight, such conditions create implicit coercion where the consent of the accused cannot truly be voluntary. Such forced labour also amounts to a clear offence within the meaning of clause (h) of sub-section 3 of section 1 of the Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

However, Clause (r) of the Atrocities Act declares intentional insults, with the intention to humiliate a member of the SC/ST, as a punishable offence, but whether or not the present bail conditions attract the applicability of this clause is a point of ambiguity since the court acknowledged that such conditions were imposed “inadvertently or without any premeditated bias.” On a strict interpretation of the said provision, in the absence of a demonstrable mens rea, the threshold for criminal liability cannot be satisfied. However, even in absence of explicit intent, the condition inherently carries caste connotations. The present case thus might lie in a grey zone as far as the Atrocities Act, 1989, is concerned, but the absence of intent, while relevant for criminal culpability, cannot immunize state action from constitutional invalidation.

The Supreme Court, while describing the nature of such conditions as “abhorrent, degrading, and unknown to law,” held them to be violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution “as no such conditions are being imposed by the state judiciary while granting bail to the accused, including those from the privileged sections of the society.”

The bail orders apparently do not invoke the language of untouchability, yet their consequences resonate with it when understood in the context of historical background of Indian society wherein the marginalised sectors by virtue of their birth were “condemned” to perform sanitation work which was considered exclusive to this part of society rendering such form of labour deeply stigmatised. Legally speaking, the legislature has left the term untouchability left open-ended so that its presence under Article 17 can be utilised to curb its existence in all forms. As it was held in the case of Devarajiah v. B. Padmanna [vi], that the term untouchability refers to historical practice of caste-based exclusion and prohibits its practice in all forms.

Since the present bail conditions were a visible manifestation of untouchability, the court held them to be violative of Article 17 as well. It stated, “In a country as deeply diverse as ours, constitutional philosophy is anchored in the promise of equality and dignity for all. The most invaluable gift that the people of India gave unto themselves through the Constitution was the vision of a casteless society founded upon the principle of substantive equality. Article 17 unequivocally dismantles the practice of untouchability and the barriers of caste, while Articles 14, 15, and 16 collectively advance this vision by guaranteeing equality before the law and enabling affirmative measures to ensure equal opportunity in every sphere of life.”

Thus, the apex court through its judgment has established that the administrative orders cannot reproduce what the Constitution seeks to dismantle.

Conclusion

The Orders were passed, taken cognizance of and eventually struck down but the humiliation they produced, the hurt they inflicted, cannot be retrospectively erased. While the timely intervention of the apex court warrants commendation, the humiliation of the marginalised group behind the entire process demands recognition and response. This entire process of judicial trajectory revealed the vulnerable position of the marginalised groups even after 78 years of independence. Bail, as one of the legal mechanisms of liberty, cannot become a bargaining ground where the liberty it provides is exchanged for humiliation and breach of constitutional violations.  

The incident however brings about a troubling paradox. The impugned orders were ultimately declared to be a manifest violation of constitutional mandates of equality, non-discrimination and prohibition of untouchability but the ambiguity regarding the applicability of the SC/ST Atrocities Act, 1989 rightly establishes the fact that the question is not merely of legality, but also of adequacy of the law specifically dedicated to the cause of marginalised sections.

Every incidence of constitutional violation leaves behind its lingering residue and the present violation reveals that the dark clouds of caste-based prejudice have not fully dispersed they do still persist and continue to haunt the lived realities. However, the timely judicial intervention has in many ways healed those wounds of indignity and established the firm faith in the due process of law.

[i] Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (Act 46 of 2023), s. 2(1)(b).

[ii] (1980) 2SCC 91.

[iii] AIR 2012 SC 830.

[iv] AIR 1981 SC 746.

[v] AIR 1982 SC 1473.

[vi] AIR 1958 Kar 84.