The venerable former Supreme Court judge VR Krishna Iyer gave a crystal-clear ruling in State of Rajasthan v Balchand 1977, establishing the maxim that bail was the rule and jail was the exception in criminal matters. In the days following this historic pronouncement eminent jurists and discerning members of the public started believing that Iyer’s dictum was the final word as it was clear-cut and left no doubt in the mind of a ‘reasonable man’ — a yardstick accepted by all judicial forums...