PAN Card not essential to stand surety:Kerala HC

Kochi, Jul 25 (UNI) In a relief to the common person caught on the wrong side of the law, the Kerala high court today set aside a lower court judgement which had insisted that persons standing surety for an accused should be PAN Card holders.

Justice R Basanth said that rigid insistence on sureties being PAN Card holders was certainly not necessary.

The court made this observation while considering a petition filed by Anil Kumar T K from Alappuzha, an accused in a cheating case.

In his petition before the high court, Anil Kumar had challenged the order of the Ernakulam additional chief judicial magistrate, who while granting him bail in the cheating case, imposed the condition that he must execute a bond with two solvent sureties, who were PAN Card holders.

Aggrieved by this condition, because of which he could not avail the bail, Anil Kumar moved the high court.

Setting aside the lower court's insistence on the PAN Card, the high court observed that courts must look at the plight of the ordinary members of the polity. ''How many persons in this country will be able to have sureties possessing PAN cards,'' the court asked.

It was enough that the sureties were sufficient and solvent, the court added.

UNI