Endless incarceration without trial in near future falls foul of Article 21 of the Constitution, the Delhi High Court said recently and granted bail to a man held in a cheating case in 2022. Justice Amit Mahajan said if an accused was suffering a prolonged incarceration without a timely trial in the case, courts would ordinarily be obligated to release them on bail. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution deals with the right of life and personal liberty. In the case at hand, the judge said charges were yet to be framed, the prosecution had sought repeated adjournments to file a supplementary chargesheet and it had been a year since the accused's last bail plea was dismissed. "The applicant has spent more than two years in custody. There is no likelihood of the trial being completed in near future. In such circumstances, incarceration of the applicant for an endless period on account of non-examination of witnesses falls foul of Article 21 of the Constitution of India," the court sai