High Court
Case Details
Court No. - 65 Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 1029 of 2022 Appellant :- Ajit Singh Respondent :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Appellant :- Krishna Kumar Singh Counsel for Respondent :- G.A. Hon'ble Sanjay Kumar Pachori,J.
Legal Reasoning
After considering the facts of the present case it prima facie appears that; (a) First information report was lodged by the father of the deceased against four named and unknown persons within six hours of the incident. The distance between the police station and place of incident is 9 Kms; (b) Appellant is not named in the first information report; (c) The Investigating Officer has not arrested the named persons till today; (d) On the basis of confessional statement of co-accused Ashish and Vineet, the name of the appellant has surfaced and role of hatching criminal conspiracy in the present case has been assigned to the appellant. (e) There is no other evidence except the confessional statement of co-accused Ashish and Vineet. (f) Co-accused Vineet Kumar having similar role, has already been enlarged on bail by this Court. (g) The appellant is languishing in jail since 29.10.2020. It is a settled law that while granting bail, the court has to keep in mind the nature of accusation, the nature of the evidence in support thereof, the severity of the punishment which conviction will entail, the character of the accused, the circumstances which are peculiar to the accused, his role and involvement in the offence, his involvement in other cases and reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being tampered with. Taking into account the totality of facts and keeping in mind, the ratio of the Apex Court's judgment in the case of State of Rajasthan v. Balchand @ Baliay (1977) 4 SCC 308, Gudikanti Narasimhulu And Ors., v. Public Prosecutor, High Court Of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1978 SC 429, Ram Govind Upadhyay v. Sudarshan Singh & Ors., (2002) 3 SCC 598, Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee & Anr., (2010) 14 SCC 496 and Mahipal v. Rajesh Kumar & Anr., (2020) 2 SCC 118, the larger interest of the public/State and other circumstances, but without expressing any opinion on the merits, I am of the view that it is a fit case for grant of bail. Hence, the present criminal appeal is allowed and impugned order dated 27.01.2022 is set aside. Let appellant/applicant, Ajit Singh be released on bail in the aforesaid case crime number on his furnishing a personal bond and two reliable sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned subject to the following conditions: (i) The applicant shall not directly or indirectly make any inducement, threat, or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade him from disclosing such facts to the court or to any police officer or tamper with the evidence. (ii) The applicant shall not pressurize/intimidate the prosecution witnesses. (iii) The applicant shall remain present, in person, before the trial court on the dates fixed for (i) opening of the case, (ii) framing of charge and (iii) recording of statement under Section 313 of Cr.P.C. (iv) The applicant shall file an undertaking to the effect that he shall not seek any adjournment on the dates fixed for evidence when the witnesses are present in the trial court. (v) The applicant shall remain present before the trial court on each date fixed, either personally or through his counsel. (vi) The applicant shall not indulge in any criminal activity or commission of any crime after being released on bail. In case of breach of any of the above conditions, it shall be a ground for cancellation of bail. If in the opinion of the trial court that absence of the applicant is deliberate or without sufficient cause, then it shall be open for the trial court to treat such default as abuse of liberty of bail and proceed in accordance with law. The trial court may make all possible efforts/endeavour and try to conclude the trial expeditiously in accordance with law after the release of the applicant, if there is no other legal impediment. It is made clear that the observations made in this order are limited to the purpose of determination of this bail application and will in no way be construed as an expression on the merits of the case. The trial court shall be absolutely free to arrive at its independent conclusions on the basis of evidence led unaffected by anything said in this order. The party shall file computer generated copy of such order downloaded from the official website of High Court Allahabad, self attested by the applicant along-with a self attested identity proof of the said person (preferably Aadhar Card) mentioning the mobile number to which the said Aadhar Card is linked; The concerned Court/Authority/Official shall verify the authenticity of such computerized copy of the order from the official website of High Court Allahabad and shall make a declaration of such verification in writing. Order Date :- 24.11.2022 Ishan Digitally signed by ISHAN JAISWAL Date: 2022.11.26 12:04:19 IST Reason: Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Arguments
Heard Shri Krishna Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the appellant, Shri Ravindra Kumar Singh, learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the material on record. Despite service of notice by refusal, no one has appeared on his behalf. The present criminal appeal under Section 14-A(2) Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has been filed by the appellant Ajit Singh to set aside the impugned order dated 27.01.2022, whereby the Special Judge (SC/ST Act), Moradabad has rejected the bail application No. 227 of 2022 of the appellant moved by him in Special Sessions Trial No. 536 of 2021 arising out of Case Crime No. 375 of 2021, under Sections 302, 120-B, I.P.C. and Section 3(2)(v) of SC/ST Act, Police Station Bhojpur, District Moradabad. Brief facts of the case are that the first information report dated 4.9.2021 was lodged by the father of the deceased against four named persons namely, Sachin, Jitendra, Rohit, Anis and one unknown person stating that his son was working as Security Guard in Sai Garden, Moradabad, which was situated in the city. He was also running a fair price shop in the village. On 4.9.2021, he was returning from duty. When he reached near the school of Nasir at about 7.30 a.m., the named accused persons, who were ambushed in a sugarcane field, fired upon his son. He son has died during the treatment. At the time of incident Kunwar Pal Singh and Rajendra were reached at the spot and they witnessed the incident. After lodging the first information report, inquest was conducted on 4.9.2021 at 13.45 hours. Postmortem of the body of the deceased was conducted on 4.9.2021 at 5.00 p.m. As per postmortem report, three lacerated wounds and one stitched wound were found on the person of the deceased, which are related to fire arm injuries and the deceased died at 10.40 a.m. on 4.9.2021. After recording the statements of the first informant Netram Singh, named eye witnesses Kunwar Pal Singh and Rajendra and other prosecution witnesses, charge sheet had been submitted against the appellant and four other named persons namely Ashish @ Ashish Pradhan, Rinku, Ajeet and Shashikala on 3.11.2021. The appellant was arrested on 29.10.2020. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the appellant is innocent and has been falsely implicated in the present case due to ulterior motive. It is further submitted that the appellant is not named in the first information report. It is further submitted that on the basis of confessional statement of co-accused Ashish and Vineet, the name of the appellant has surfaced and role of hatching criminal conspiracy in the present case has been assigned to the appellant. It is further submitted that the first informant has filed a writ petition before this Court with a prayer of fair investigation of case crime No. 375 of 2021 alleging that he has apprehension as the police authorities are protecting the accused and are not interested to take any action against them. It is further submitted that there is no other evidence except the confessional statement of co-accused Ashish and Vineet. It is further submitted that no incriminating article has been recovered from the possession of the appellant. It is further submitted that the appellant has criminal history of 13 other cases related to year of 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, in all the cases appellant was granted bail and a copy of the bail orders is annexed as Annexure No. 15. It is further submitted that two cases of murder have been roped by the police against the appellant and out of which in one case being Case Crime No. 8 of 2011, the appellant was not named in the aforesaid case and except the extra judicial confessional statement no other evidence was collected against the appellant and in that case bail has been granted by the coordinate Bench of this Court and in other case police has roped the name of the appellant. It has also been submitted that co-accused, Vineet Kumar having similar role, has already been enlarged on bail by this Court vide order dated 18.11.2022 in Criminal Appeal No. 1310 of 2022 and the applicant is also entitled to be enlarged on bail on the ground of parity It is further submitted that the appellant is languishing in jail since 29.10.2020. It is further submitted that there is no possibility of the appellant of fleeing away after being released on bail or tampering with the witnesses. In case the appellant is enlarged on bail, he shall not misuse the liberty of bail. Per contra, learned A.G.A. has supported the order passed by the Special Judge and vehemently opposed the prayer for grant of bail to the applicant. But they could not point out any material to the contrary. They further submit that in case the applicant is released on bail, he will again indulge in similar activities and will misuse the liberty of bail.