High Court
Case Details
Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:53511 Court No. - 80 Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 1078 of 2025 Appellant :- Amit Respondent :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Appellant :- Amit Malik,Bramhapal Malick Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Pankaj Bharti
Legal Reasoning
Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J. 1. This criminal appeal under Section 14-A (2) Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has been preferred by the appellant - Amit with the prayer to allow the appeal, set aside the bail rejection order dated 28.10.2024 passed by the Addl. Sessions Judge / Special Judge (SC/ST Act), Shamli and release the appellant on bail in case crime no.115 of 2024 under Sections 103 (1), 238 B.N.S. and Section 3 (2) (v) S.C./S.T. Act, Police Station Babri, District Shamli. 2. Heard learned counsel for the appellant, learned A.G.A. for the State as well as learned counsel for the respondent no.2 and perused the entire record. 3. Prosecution story, as unfolded in the F.I.R., is that Sundaram, the brother of Shivam, the informant, was working as a Guard in the State Bank. On 13.9.2024 at about 6:00 P.M. he went for his duty by motorcycle and subsequently on 14.9.2024 at about 6:00 A.M., the informant got information from the police that the dead body of his brother is lying on road. The informant immediately rushed to the place of occurrence and an F.I.R. against the named accused appellant was lodged and after investigation, charge-sheet was submitted in this matter. 4. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that the appellant is innocent and has been implicated in this case only on the basis of suspicion. He has not committed the present offence. Alleged offences are not attracted against him. It is also submitted that the prosecution story is totally false and fabricated. It is also submitted that there is no eyewitness of the incident. Occurrence is related to circumstantial evidence but the chain of links is not complete to established the offence. It is also submitted that the appellant was not seen with the deceased and there is no last seen together evidence against him. It is also submitted that in the postmortem report, no external injury was found on the body of the deceased and the case of death has been mentioned in the postmortem report as Ribs fractured with Visceral ruptured (Internal Hemorrhage) and head injury with hemorrhage (EDH & SDH) due to antemortem injury. Viscera was preserved and sent for analysis to F.S.L. It is also submitted that there is no cogent evidence against the appellant. The incident happened with the deceased was only an accident. In the postmortem report, the injuries have been found only in the left side of the body of the deceased. It is also submitted that the F.I.R. of this case has been lodged belatedly without any plausible explanation for the same. The appellant has not been arrested on spot and no recovery has been made from him. The appellant has absolutely no motive to commit the present offence. It is also submitted that the motorcycle was also damaged in the incident, which was taken by the appellant to the mechanic and the I.O. of the case has recorded the statement of the said mechanic as well. 5. It is further submitted that the bail application of the appellant has been rejected in an illegal manner by the Special Judge (S.C./S.T. Act), Shamli. It is further submitted that the Court concerned while passing the impugned order did not take into account the facts and evidence available on record in right perspective and erred in passing the same. It is lastly submitted that the impugned order rejecting the bail application of the appellant suffers from infirmity and illegality warranting interference by this Court. Appellant is languishing in jail since 19.9.2024 having no criminal antecedents to his credit. 6. On the other hand, learned A.G.A. as well as learned counsel for the respondent no.2 opposed the appeal and it has been submitted that the accused appellant was found taking liquor with the deceased in the night of the fateful day. The CDR collected by the I.O. during investigation reflects that the location of the deceased and the appellant was almost the same at the time of incident. Since the last seen together evidence is available against the accused appellant, it is his duty to explain as to under what circumstances death of the deceased was caused, as contained in Section 109 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. It is further submitted that during investigation, sufficient and reliable evidence has been collected by the I.O. that after closing of the Bank on 13.9.2024, the appellant and the deceased took liquor together and subsequently the deceased was taken by the appellant to his village where they again consumed liquor and when in the night they proceeded with the motorcycle, which belonged to the appellant, the very next morning the deceased was found dead. It is also submitted that the details of the CDR specifically reveal that it was the appellant and appellant only who was in the company of the deceased at the time of the occurrence. It reveals from the statement of Smt. Anju, the wife of the appellant that he had been in the company of the deceased in the fateful night. Further, if the death of deceased was the result of an accident why the appellant himself did not report the matter to the police, it has not been clarified. It is also submitted that the FSL Report is still awaited but charge-sheet has been submitted against the appellant. 7. It is further submitted that the appellant committed the present offence having knowledge that the victim belonged to S.C./S.T. Community. There is no infirmity or illegality in the impugned order. It is also submitted that ample evidence was collected by the I.O. against the present accused appellant as well and his active participation in the commission of the crime has been come into light on the basis of the evidence collected during investigation. The appellant is not entitled for any relaxation and his bail application is liable to be rejected and the appeal is liable to be dismissed. 8. I have considered the rival submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the entire record including the impugned order carefully. 9. Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the rival submissions made by the parties, nature of offence, complicity of accused, seriousness of the offence and taking into account the fact that the deceased belonged to weaker section of the Society and ample evidence was collected by the Investigating Officer against the present accused appellant as well and his active participation in the commission of the crime has been come into light on the basis of the evidence collected during investigation, this Court finds that no ground is made out to allow the appeal, set-aside the bail rejection order and release the accused appellant on bail.
Decision
10. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed. Order Date :- 5.4.2025 ss Digitally signed by :- SANDEEP SHARMA High Court of Judicature at Allahabad