21st July 2025, Monday, the Supreme Court cancelled anticipatory bail of Vishwajeet Jadhav and his family members in Nikita Jagganath Shetty @ Nikita Vishwajeet Jadhav v. State of Maharashtra. The Pune woman and divorced wife of the accused, had filed the case, given threats, forged documents, and used naked muscle power by the respondents to take over Hotel Vaishali, property of her late father.
Facts
In Shetty v. State of Maharashtra, complainant Nikita Shetty alleged that her husband and his family members broke into Pune’s Hotel Vaishali in July 2023, caused damage to the property, harassed employees, and presented a dubious power of attorney and gift deed to lay claim. In spite of the prior ex parte order in favor of the husband granted by the civil court, it was revoked on appeal. The Sessions Court denied anticipatory bail based on numerous FIRs and suppression of facts, but relief was extended subsequently by the Bombay High Court.
Arguments
The appellant of the Supreme Court had argued that the High Court was blind to salient facts, such as the withdrawal of the civil injunction and the seriousness of the offences under investigation. The respondents had altered CCTV footage, coerced security guards, and used their civil proceeding as a shield to challenge criminal prosecution. Furthermore, the accused are also charged to have used the property of the hotel as a collateral to avail a bank loan of ₹5 crore against documents that were forged.
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The State opposed the appeal of the complainant on grounds of reasons that custodial interrogation was warranted because serious economic and physical crimes were involved.
On considering both the sides, the Court decided that the High Court was in error in granting anticipatory bail without taking the entire overviews of suppression, threat to witnesses, and evidential tampering into consideration. The Court reasserted the doctrine developed in Srikant Upadhyay v. State of Bihar (2024) that anticipatory bail shall be denied where custodial interrogation is necessary or where the accused is likely to misuse the judicial process. The appeal was allowed, the anticipatory bail was revoked, and the respondents were ordered to surrender within two weeks keeping their right to move an application for regular bail at a future date.
Analysis
The Court has reiterated the requirement of preserving criminal investigation from being diverted by anticipatory bail relief, more especially in coercive possession, documents forgery, and matrimonial abuse of rights of property.The ruling is consistent with the overall judicial trend discouraging the use of anticipatory bail as a broad umbrella where the investigation at the crucial stage.
This ruling is particularly noteworthy in upholding the distinction between criminal liability and civil redress. It affirms that marriage relations cannot be used to justify unlawful dominance over a woman’s inherited assets, and court proceedings cannot be used to legitimate wrongful possession.
Coram:
Justice Vikram Nath
Justice Sandeep Mehta
References:
• Nikita Jagganath Shetty @ Nikita Vishwajeet Jadhav v. State of Maharashtra & Anr
• Srikant Upadhyay v. State of Bihar
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