HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD ?A.F.R. Court No. - 47 Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 32012 of 2013 Applicant :- Raju Gupta And 3 Ors. Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. Counsel for Applicant :- Sharad Kumar Srivastava,Lallu Singh,Pradeep Kumar Tiwari,Seema Pandey Counsel for Opposite Party :- Govt.Advocate AND Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 23756 of 2013 Applicant :- Mithilesh Sahu Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. Counsel for Applicant :- Sharad Kumar Srivastava,Lallu Singh,Pradeep Kumar Tiwari Counsel for Opposite Party :- Govt. Advocate Hon'ble Karuna Nand Bajpayee,J.
These are two bail applications, one being Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 32012 of 2013-Raju Gupta and others Vs. State of U.P. and another being Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 23756 of 2013-Mithilesh Sahu Vs. State of U.P.. As both the bail applications arise out of the same case crime number, they are being disposed of by a common order.
Heard learned counsel for the applicants and learned A.G.A.
Perused the record.
Submission of the counsel for the applicants is that the incident is said to have taken place in the mid night at 2.00 A.M. when the deceased was in his own house. The accused-applicants who were variously armed and many in number came up there and called the deceased out and thereafter took him away by force. Further submission is that the first information report is said to have been lodged by mother of the deceased and she also claims herself to be an eye witness of the occurrence, who saw the accused persons taking away the deceased from her house and later on committing his murder at some distance after mercilessly beating him. It was also claimed by mother of the deceased that she had also followed the accused persons and the deceased stealthly which enabled her soon thereafter to witness the occurrence of the murder. But strangely enough, it was admitted by her in her statement given to the Investigating Officer that she did not wake up either her another son or any other family members who were very well present and were sleeping in the house. Counsel for the applicants has drawn the attention of the Court to the statements of the father as well as brother of the deceased which have been annexed along with bail application, in which they have stated that after the incident, the mother of the deceased woke them up and narrated the story of the occurrence as to how her son was taken away and in which manner the accused persons had committed his murder near a temple and well. The entire occurrence including the factum of murder was reported by mother of the deceased to them. Submission is that these statements also show that neither the father nor the brother of the deceased were waken up earlier and they were informed by mother after the entire episode of murder had been completed. It was further submitted that this story is highly improbable and it is not possible to believe that a mother after seeing that her son was being taken away by the accused persons would not wake up the other inmates of the house. Contention is that normally nobody would rush in the night behind the accused persons without waking up the other members of the house and would inform them immediately so that no untoward incident should take place. It was also submitted that this is highly unnatural conduct of the mother which by itself speaks volumes about falsity of the claim of prosecution that when the deceased was being taken away by the accused persons, she witnessed it happening and also witnessed the occurrence of murder. It was also pointed out that the deceased had some history of bad antecedents and some cases of theft had already been there against him. The argument is that probably because of bad antecedents of the deceased, he was done to death without any knowledge of his family members and only when the murder was discovered that this false story was cooked up, out of enmity. Several other submissions in order to demonstrate the falsity of the allegations made against the applicants have also been placed forth before the Court. The circumstances which, according to the counsel, led to the false implication of the accused have also been touched upon at length. It has been assured on behalf of the applicants that they are ready to cooperate with the process of law and shall faithfully make themselves available before the court whenever required. It has also been pointed out that the accused are not having any criminal history and that in the wake of heavy pendency of cases in the Court, there is no likelihood of any early conclusion of trial. Lastly, it was submitted that the applicant has already spent about two and half years in jail and is languishing behind the bars since 26.3.2013.
Learned A.G.A. opposed the prayer for bail and has tried to submit that the mother might have gone to save the deceased and might have not thought it proper to inform the other family members immediately and she might have gone to apprehend the accused.
After perusing the record in the light of the submissions made at the bar and after taking an overall view of all the facts and circumstances of this case, the nature of evidence, the period of detention already undergone, and also the absence of any convincing material to indicate the possibility of tampering with the evidence, this Court is of the view that the applicants may be enlarged on bail.
Let the applicants-Raju Gupta, Rakesh Sahu, Jiddi, Ghanshyam and Mithilesh Sahu, involved in Case Crime No. 100 of 2013, under Sections 147, 148, 149, 304 I.P.C., Police Station Bindki, District Fatehpur, be released on bail on their executing a personal bond and two sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned on the following conditions :-
(1) The applicants will not make any attempt to tamper with the prosecution evidence in any manner whatsoever.
(2) The applicants will personally appear on each and every date in the court and their personal presence shall not be exempted unless the court itself deems it fit to do so in the interest of justice.
It may be observed that in the event of any breach of the aforesaid conditions, the court below shall be at liberty to proceed for the cancellation of applicant's bail.
It is clarified that the observations, if any, made in this order are strictly confined to the disposal of the bail application and must not be construed to have any reflection on the ultimate merits of the case.
Order Date :- 11.9.2015 Rmk.