A person on bail has his liberty for the time being, and cancelling bail takes it away without a conviction. That is why the courts treat an application to cancel bail differently from an application to grant it. This research paper studies eighty-two reported judgments of the Supreme Court and the Peshawar High Court, from Mushtaq Ahmad (PLD 1966 SC 126) to the decisions of 2023 to 2025.

The central authority today is Sami Ullah v. Laiq Zada (2020 SCMR 1115), which sets out seven grounds on which bail may be cancelled. A bail order that rests on a wrong principle can be recalled even if the accused has behaved well (Sidra Abbas, 2020 SCMR 2089). A bail order that is merely doubtful will stand if the accused has not misused it.

The paper also answers questions that come up in practice but are rarely written about. Who can cancel bail granted by a Magistrate? What happens when the complainant first gave a no-objection, or compromised, and then changed his mind? Does a pending trial protect the accused? Must the victim be heard?

For the applicant: plead the Sami Ullah ground that fits and attach proof; if the order is perverse, show the material it ignored; if the ground is misuse, give dates and documents; and check that you are before the right forum.

For the accused: ask for a hearing and recall of any ex parte order, show the attendance record and that there has been no misuse, and argue that cancellation needs strong and exceptional grounds.

The full paper, with a question-and-answer summary of every judgment, is free to download:
https://arbitratorandlaw.com/resources/research/4/file

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Adv. Syed Zeshan Hashmi, Advocate High Court
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