LOCAL) POLICE STATION CASE No. 976 of 2021 · Calcutta High Court

Mr. Prabir Kumar Mitra Ms. Subhanwita Ghosh … … for the petitioner Mr. Neguive Ahmed .. ld. Addl. Public Prosecutor Ms. Trina Mitra … … for the State Leave is granted to the learned advocate-on-record of the petitioner to correct the cause title in course of the day. It is submitted on behalf of the petitioner that he is in custody for about 260 days. It is further submitted there is no material to connect the petitioner with the alleged crime. Co-accused viz. Md. Meraj has been enlarged on bail. Learned Additional Public Prosecutor opposes the prayer for bail and submits petitioner is a conspirator to the crime. He had hired accused persons to procure stolen granules and murder the driver of the vehicle carrying granules, if necessary. We have considered the materials on record. Incident occurred in December, 2021. Petitioner was arrested in January, 2022 and stolen granules were recovered from his possession.

Initially, charge-sheet was filed in April, 2022. Till then, apart from recovery of stolen granules, no material transpired disclosing involvement of the petitioner in the conspiracy to commit murder. After a lapse of seven 2 months, statements of witnesses have been recorded in course of further investigation wherein the witnesses claimed they overheard conversations between the petitioner and co-accused regarding theft of granules and murder of the driver, if necessary. Apart from the aforesaid statement, there is no other material to show the petitioner had conspired to murder the driver of the vehicle carrying stolen granules. Credibility of such belated statements recorded in course of further investigation requires to be assessed during trial. Recovery of stolen articles from the petitioner per se would not lead to an inference of conspiracy to commit murder. Under such circumstances and bearing in mind the period of detention suffered by the petitioner, we are of the opinion further detention of the accused/petitioner is not necessary and he may be enlarged on bail however, subject to strict conditions.

Therefore, the accused/petitioner, namely Ram Kumar Mahato @ Ram Mahato, be released on bail upon furnishing a bond of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees Ten thousand only), with two sureties of like amount each, one of whom must be local, to the satisfaction of the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Paschim Medinipur subject to condition that the said petitioner shall appear before the trial court on every date of hearing until further orders and shall not intimidate witnesses or tamper with evidence in any manner whatsoever and on further condition that the petitioner, while on bail, shall not enter the jurisdiction of Kharagpur (Local) Police Station except for the purpose of investigation and/or for attending court proceedings and shall provide the address where he shall presently reside to the Investigating Agency as well as the court below and shall report to the Officer-in-charge of the concerned police station within whose jurisdiction he shall presently reside once in a week until further orders. 3 In the event he fails to appear before the trial court without justifiable cause, the trial court shall be at liberty to cancel his bail automatically without reference to this court. The application for bail, thus, stands allowed. (Ananya Bandyopadhyay, J.) (Joymalya Bagchi, J.)