India, April 27 -- A court can reject anticipatory bail of an accused but it has no jurisdiction to direct him to surrender before the trial court, the Supreme Court has said. A bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and Ujjal Bhuyan made the observation while hearing a plea filed by a man accused of cheating and forgery. "If the court wants to reject the anticipatory bail, it may do so, but the court has no jurisdiction to say that the petitioner should now surrender," the bench said.

The Jharkhand High Court had rejected anticipatory bail plea of the accused and asked him to surrender and seek regular bail. In this case, a complaint had been filed before a magistrate alleging offences under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 420 (cheatin...