High Court
Case Details
Court No. - 88 Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 5414 of 2021 Appellant :- Ramu Gola Respondent :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Appellant :- Sanjay Singh Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Prashant Agrawal Hon'ble Sanjay Kumar Singh,J. Despite service of notice upon the informant / opposite party no.2, no one has put in appearance on his behalf.
Legal Reasoning
Heard Mr. V.P. Srivastava, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. Sanjay Singh, learned counsel for the appellant, learned Additional Government Advocate for the State of U.P. and perused the record. This criminal appeal under Section 14-A(2) of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has been preferred by the appellant with the prayer to set aside the bail rejection order dated 15.09.2021/22.09.2021 passed by learned Special Judge (SC/ST Act), Agra in Bail Application No. 4993 of 2021 arising out of Case Crime No. 393 of 2021, under Sections 302, 201, 34 I.P.C. and Section 3(2)(5) of SC/ST Act, Police Station Sikandara, District Agra. In short compass, the facts of the case as unfolded by the prosecution are that the informant/opposite party no. 2, son of deceased has lodged an F.I.R. on 29.06.2021 at 00:43 hours regarding an incident which took place on 24.06.2021 against three named accused persons namely Raju Gola, Ramu Gola (present appellant) and Heera Lal alleging inter-alia that his father aged about 60 years had left the house on 24.06.2021 but did not return to home. Despite best effort made by him, he could not be traced out, therefore, a missing report was lodged by him on 27.06.2021. After some time, police informed that a dead body of an unknown person was found and on his hand, Phoolchand was written. On the said information, he went to the mortuary and found the said unidentified dead body is the dead body of his father. Thereafter, he was told by the neighbours that his father was lastly seen in the company of Raju Gola, Ramu Gola and Heera Lal, therefore, he believes that they have committed the murder of his father. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that in this case, an unknown dead body was found on 27.06.2021 in the territory of Police Station Vrindavan, Mathura. Thereafter on the information, inquest proceeding of the said dead body was conducted on 27.06.2021 at 18:00 hours and it was completed at 20:00 hours. Thereafter, the dead body was sent to mortuary for post-mortem. It is next submitted that before conducting the post-mortem, the said dead body was identified by the informant as the dead body of his father. Thereafter, name of deceased was added in the inquest report and the post-mortem report and the F.I.R. of the same was lodged on 29.06.2021. It is further submitted that pursuant to the said F.I.R., all the accused persons were arrested on 29.06.2021 and it is the case of the prosecution that they, in their interrogation, have confessed their guilt that they have committed the murder of the deceased by stone. Thereafter, on the pointing out of the accused persons, the said stone, Aadhaar Card, two electricity bills, some papers of diary and hairs were recovered. The hairs which were recovered from the spot were sent for forensic examination along with the hairs of the accused persons and as per the DNA report, the samples taken from the spot matched with the sample of the hair of the accused persons. On the basis of aforesaid facts, the main substratum of argument of learned counsel for the appellant is that it is the case of circumstantial evidence. It is an admitted fact that the informant is not an eye witness of the incident and he has lodged the F.I.R. on the basis of presumption of hearsay evidence but the source of information has not been disclosed by the informant either in the F.I.R. or in the statement under Section 161 Cr.P.C. Much emphasis has been given by contending that there is no direct evidence against the appellant and it is well settled that in the case of circumstantial evidence, all the chain of circumstances must be completed in order to hold a person guilty. It is also pointed out that similarly situated co-accused Heera Lal has been granted bail by the co-ordinate Bench of this court vide order dated 30.11.2021 passed in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 36479 of 2021. Lastly, it is submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that there is no chance of the appellant fleeing away from the judicial process or tampering with the prosecution evidence. Appellant has no criminal history to his credit and is languishing in jail since 30.06.2021 and in case, the appellant is released on bail, he will not misuse the liberty of bail and cooperate with the trial. Per contra, learned A.G.A. opposed the prayer for bail but could not dispute the aforesaid factual aspects of the matter as argued on behalf of the appellant. Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, submissions of learned counsel for the parties and keeping in view the nature of the offence, evidence, complicity of the accused, severity of punishment, I find that it is an admitted case of the prosecution that the F.I.R. has been lodged on the basis of suspicion and there is no direct evidence against the appellant. I also find that co-accused Heera Lal, under similar accusation, has been granted bail by the co- ordinate Bench of this Court, accordingly, this Court is of the view that the appellant has made out a case for bail. The Court below erred in rejecting the bail application. The impugned order suffers from infirmity and illegality and the same is liable to be set-aside and the appeal is liable to be allowed. Accordingly, the appeal is allowed and the impugned order rejecting the bail application of the appellant is set-aside. Let the appellant Ramu Gola involved in the above case be released on bail on furnishing a personal bond and two sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned subject to following conditions. Further, before issuing the release order, the sureties be verified. (i) The appellant will not tamper with the evidence during the trial. (ii) The appellant will not pressurize/ intimidate the prosecution witness. (iii) The appellant will appear before the trial court on the date fixed, unless personal presence is exempted. (iv) The appellant shall not commit an offence similar to the offence of which he is accused, or suspected, of the commission of which he is suspected. (v) The appellant 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 ofÏcer or tamper with the evidence. In case of breach of any of the above conditions, the prosecution shall be at liberty to move bail cancellation application before this Court. Order Date :- 10.8.2022 Saurabh Digitally signed by SAURABH KUMAR Date: 2022.08.10 17:44:03 IST Reason: Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad