Niraj Kumar @ Niraj Manjhi v. The State of Bihar

====================================================== Appearance : For the Petitioner/s : For the Opposite Party/s : ====================================================== CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE SATYAVRAT VERMA Mr. Gajendra Kumar Singh Mr. Bishweshwar Ram ORAL ORDER 2 17-06-2026

Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned A.P.P. for the State.

The petitioner apprehends his arrest in a case registered for the offence punishable under Section 30(a) of Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016/Amendment Act, 2018/2022.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that petitioner is a person with clean antecedent and allegation is of recovery of 7 litres of liquor from house of the petitioner. It is next submitted that petitioner was not arrested from the spot as such nothing was recovered from his conscious possession and the house in question is a joint family property as such it cannot be alleged with certainty that it was petitioner, who had kept the liquor in the house or the liquor kept in the house was within his Patna High Court CR. MISC. No.37469 of 2026(2) dt.17-06-2026 knowledge and after amendment in the Excise Act in the year 2018, the concept of deemed possession and presumed offender has been done away with and he came to be implicated at the instance of local person but then the name of the person who disclosed the name of the petitioner is not disclosed in the FIR which casts an aspersion on the case of the prosecution, when petitioner admittedly is a person with clean antecedent.

Learned A.P.P. for the State opposes the prayer for anticipatory bail of the petitioner.

Considering the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner, the petitioner above-named, in the event of his arrest or surrender within a period of six weeks from today, be released on provisional anticipatory bail on furnishing bail bonds of Rs.500/- (Rupees five hundred) with two sureties of the like amount each to the satisfaction of the learned trial court where the case is pending/successor court in connection with Ghoshi P.S. Case No.105/2026, subject to the conditions as laid down under Section 482(2) of the B.N.S.S.

It is made clear that the learned trial court thereafter shall verify the criminal antecedents of the petitioner and in the event if it is found that petitioner has antecedent of even one case, in that event, it would be presumed that petitioner had Patna High Court CR. MISC. No.37469 of 2026(2) dt.17-06-2026 concealed his antecedent before this court, as such, the provisional anticipatory bail order shall not be confirmed but if on verification it is found that petitioner is a person with clean antecedent, in that event the provisional anticipatory bail order shall be confirmed forthwith. amit/- U T (Satyavrat Verma, J)