High Court
Case Details
Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:36092 Court No. - 82 Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 12319 of 2024 Appellant :- Khilaph Singh Alias Khilli Respondent :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Appellant :- Abhai Kumar Singh,Achal Kumar Singh Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Ram Chandra,Ravindra Kumar
Legal Reasoning
Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J. 1. Heard learned counsel for the appellant/applicant, learned counsel for the opposite party no.2, learned A.G.A for the State and gone through the record. 2. This appeal has been filed by the appellant/applicant - Khilaph Singh Alias Khilli under Section 14-A(2) of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act with the prayer to allow the appeal, set aside the bail rejection order dated 4.9.2024 passed by Special Judge, SC/ST Act/Additional Sessions Judge, Meerut in Crl.Misc. Bail Application No. 5289 of 2024 arising out Case Crime No.23 of 2020 under Sections 302, 201, 34 IPC and Section 3(2)5 of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, police Station Mundali, District Meerut. 3. The informant / opposite party no.2 lodged the F.I.R. on 15.2.2020 against accused Ashish, Umesh Gurjar and Deva regarding the incident which is alleged to have taken place on 14.2.2020 at about 8:00 P.M. wherein the wife of the informant was found murdered while she had gone to take the lent money. 4. Learned counsel for the applicant submits that appellant/applicant is innocent; he is not named in the FIR; he has falsely been implicated in the case; that the version of the FIR is developed by the prosecution witnesses in their statements under Section 161 Cr.P.C; that the witnesses of inquest namely Veer Singh Chauhan, Smt. Priyanka and Dharam Pal have not disclosed the name of the appellant/applicant; that for the first time, the name of applicant/appellant surfaced on the basis of CCTV footage and on the basis of confessional statement of co-accused; that the dead body of the deceased was recovered from the field of Abhinav Sharma; that the time of alleged incident did not match with the medical evidence; that there is no mention of caste denoting words as per the prosecution version; that no role of appellant/applicant participating in the commission of alleged offence is made out; that the order passed by learned Special Judge rejecting bail application is without application of mind and is liable to be set aside; that there is no intention to kill the deceased; that there is no eyewitness of the occurrence of murder and the so- called eyewitnesses also have not seen the alleged incident; that the dead body of the deceased has not been retrieved on the pointing out of the appellant; that the co-accused Smt. Pooja, Smt. Usha and Ashish, who have preferred Criminal Appeal Nos.2154 of 2020, 2234 of 2020 and 1166 of 2021, have been granted bail by way of allowing the aforesaid appeals by this Court vide orders dated 9.12.2020, 9.12.2020 and 2.9.2021 respectively; that the motive assigned to the accused persons is connected with money lending but the present appellant had no concern with the money lending and only on account of being the friend of co-accused Ashish, he has been falsely implicated in this case; that the crime was not committed by the accused persons in furtherance of common intention of all. It is lastly contended that the accused applicant/appellant is languishing in jail since 17.08.2024 and in the wake of heavy pendency of cases in the Court, there is no likelihood of any early conclusion of trial and thus, the appellant/applicant is entitled for indulgence. 5. Learned A.G.A has opposed the appeal and it has been vehemently argued that as per prosecution story and statement of witnesses, all the accused persons in this case have been assigned active role in the participation of crime of murder of a lady. The appellant committed the present offence having knowledge that the deceased belonged to scheduled caste community and there is no infirmity or illegality in the impugned order rejecting the bail application of the applicant/appellant. 6. 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. 7. Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case and keeping in view the nature of the offence, evidence, complicity of the accused, severity of punishment, the Court is of the opinion that the appellant has made out a case for bail. The trial Court 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. 8. Accordingly, the appeal is allowed and the impugned order rejecting the bail application of the appellant is, hereby, set-aside. 9. Let the appellant - Khilaph Singh Alias Khilli involved in Case Crime No.23 of 2020 under Sections 302, 201, 34 IPC and Section 3(2)5 of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, police Station Mundali, District Meerut be released on bail on furnishing a personal bond and two heavy 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 officer or tamper with the evidence. 10. 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 :- 11.3.2025 ss Digitally signed by :- SANDEEP SHARMA High Court of Judicature at Allahabad