Bengaluru: A subsequent addition of an offense to the FIR does not mean that anticipatory bail will lose its efficacy, the Karnataka High Court said in a recent judgment. Further, the court said that the prosecution can move the request to revoke the bail in accordance with the law, if it wants and then file a request for detention with the police.
Petitioner Aravind Kumar R, Managing Director of Virtue Infra Builders Pvt Ltd. In JP Nagar. The JP Nagar police had registered an FIR in November 2025 based on N Asha’s complaint. The complaint was against Aravind Kumar and his colleagues alleging that they cheated him by not handing over the house site even after receiving Rs 17 lakh.
Aravind Kumar had moved the court and was granted anticipatory bail in December 2025. During the existence of anticipatory bail, the JP Nagar police sought the court’s permission to add offenses under the Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Institutions (KPIDFE) Act. After granting permission and adding sections to the FIR, the police filed a remand petition before the court that had granted anticipatory bail seeking police arrest for investigation purposes. The applicant challenged the court’s order to remand him for a period of 14 days, despite the existence of the stipulated guarantee.
Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that mere involvement of an offense does not mean that the order granting anticipatory bail will vanish into thin air. “While it (of anticipatory bail) was in existence, merely because the BUDS Act or the KPIDFE Act was invoked, the said court could not have happily ignored its order granting anticipatory bail to the petitioner. Anticipatory bail, by its very nature, is pending or apprehending the registration of the crime of arrest, or if it is a registered crime of anticipatory release, the petitioner having been committed to police custody on the application of detention is, prima facie, illegal,” the court said.
The court cited the decision of the Court of Appeal and said that an anticipatory bail once granted would be deemed to be in effect, notwithstanding the filing of the charge sheet, unless there is some supervening circumstance leading to the cancellation of the anticipatory bail, at the request of the prosecution or on an application before the superior court.
The court accepted the State Public Prosecutor’s submission that Article 9 of the KPIDFE Act prohibits the granting of a preliminary guarantee. “Though this may be the fact, the KPIDFE Act is added or introduced later with the permission of the Court, not when the crime is registered and anticipatory bail is granted. An addition of an offense to the FIR later would not mean that the anticipatory bail would lose its effectiveness. Therefore, it was for the prosecution to get the bail and to have it canceled by the police, if the application was to be cancelled. custody,” Justice Nagaprasanna said.
