The demarcation, which the Supreme Court has once again made, pertains to the important legal principle wherein custody in one case does not deny the right to seek anticipatory bail in another case. This judgment also explains the important aspect of criminal jurisprudence and how personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution is not curtailed at the hands of the law, even when all grounds for bail are fair and existent. The case had come up before the Supreme Court after a lower court had rejected the anticipatory bail plea of a person who was already in judicial custody in some other case. The accused, therefore, approached the Supreme Court with a grievance that once a person was already in custody in one case, he was being denied the right to seek anticipatory bail in another independent case. The petitioner contended that the statutory right of anticipatory bail was meant to protect an individual against unlawful or unjust arrest, and that this interpretation by the lower court was unduly restrictive and unsupported. Order of the Supreme Court Such a distinction between custody and anticipatory bail was made by the Supreme Court of India while pronouncing the judgment. The Court stated that while the provision of anticipatory bail under Section 438 of the CrPC is principally to avoid arrest. It outlined the centrality of anticipatory bail, which is basically against highhanded and unreasonable arrest. The judgment held that the purpose of granting anticipatory bail is to defend the liberty of a person and save him from unnecessary and wrongful arrest. Anticipatory bail, it further reiterated, shall not be refused on technical grounds nor on a mechanical interpretation of the law. It explained that an accused who is already in custody in one case can also be granted anticipatory bail on merits in another case. The integrating test for grant of anticipatory bail should be based upon the merits of the case before it rather than upon the custody status of the accused in some other case. The judgment of the Court strengthens the doctrine of personal liberty while defining the right to anticipatory bail in India. It gives much-needed guidance on the principle with which the courts should interpret the right to anticipatory bail when the accused is already in custody in some other matter.