What Is Bail, and How Many Kinds of Bail Are There?

What is bail? And how many kinds of it are there?

In criminal matters, bail is of two kinds:
1. Pre-arrest
2. Post-arrest

In pre-arrest, bail can be obtained before arrest takes place. In post-arrest bail, once arrest has taken place and the person has gone to jail, bail can be obtained. Now, why is this bail needed? Or why does a person go to jail? Or why does a person seek pre-arrest bail? Whenever any law enforcement agency — the local police, the police station, a federal agency, customs, anti-corruption, or any other such agency — registers a criminal case against someone, on anyone's application, for offences under criminal law, and those offences are cognizable, identifiable offences, then the police can arrest that person at any time. Keeping this in mind, let us first understand pre-arrest bail.

A case is registered against Zaid. Now Zaid says this case is entirely based on falsehood, has no connection with reality; the complainant, on whose application the case was registered, registered it in bad faith, wants to achieve some unlawful objective of his own on the basis of this case, and this case has no connection whatsoever with reality — it is based on a fabricated story. Now once he learns of the case, that it has been registered — he can find out through any means — he will immediately go to his lawyer and say, I am innocent, a false case has been foisted on me, the police want to arrest me, get me pre-arrest bail. Now the lawyer will write exactly these things in his application — that this complainant is acting in bad faith, is dishonest, this is not a story based on facts, this case has been registered to achieve some unlawful and dangerous objective, there is no risk of me absconding, the complainant has no evidence against me, only lies, I will not tamper with any evidence produced by the complainant or gathered by the investigating officer. I have no prior criminal record — meaning no case has been registered against me before; if there has been one, I am on bail in it; if I am on bail, no conviction resulted; I have no previous conviction, I have no prior record. I am prepared to give every kind of surety bond to the court's satisfaction; keeping me in jail serves no purpose whatsoever — therefore I should be granted pre-arrest bail. The court will grant you interim bail on the first hearing date. It is up to the court how long it grants, keeping in mind the nature of the offence, and it will also direct that you produce your surety, who will give this bond that you will appear on every hearing date — that surety will appear in court, file the bail bond, and you will get pre-arrest bail. Now he will go to the police station and join the investigation, and prove that this case has been falsely registered against me. Now two things can happen here: if he feels that his position will not be given importance, that they are simply forcing him — that if you do what the complainant registered this FIR to achieve, we will clear you of the case. The other possibility is that the investigating officer listens to your position; after listening, he says, yes, you are absolutely right, and he asks the complainant what answer he has against this position. The complainant either falls silent, or starts making a fuss because he is lying and has no facts — the officer will write you up as innocent and say that you have no connection with this incident, or that this incident never even took place. Handling bail is an art — within a very limited scope you have to convince the court that I am innocent. As a second step, you have to prove that, sir, even if I am sent to jail, keeping me in jail will not benefit the prosecution in any way. Once you prove these two things, your bail will be granted.