Allahabad High Court
Golu @ Beer Bahadur vs State Of U.P. And Another on 29 January, 2021
Bench: Dinesh Kumar Singh-I
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 76
Case :- CRIMINAL REVISION No. - 1341 of 2020
Revisionist :- Golu @ Beer Bahadur
Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another
Counsel for Revisionist :- Rajesh Pratap Singh
Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.,Janardan Yadav
Hon'ble Dinesh Kumar Singh-I,J.
Heard Sri Rajesh Pratap Singh, learned counsel for the revisionist, Sri Janardan Yadav, learned counsel for the opposite party no. 2 and Sri G.P. Singh, learned A.G.A. for the State.
This criminal revision has been preferred against the judgment and order dated 30.5.2020 passed by the Special Judge (POCSO Act)/ Additional Sessions Judge, Azamgarh in Criminal Appeal No. 69 of 2019 (Golu @ Bir Bahadur Vs. State of U.P.) as well as order dated 30.11.2019 passed by Juvenile Justice Board in Case Crime No. 41 of 2019 under sections 302, 201 IPC, Police Station Kaundhrapur, District Azamgarh, whereby both the Courts below have rejected the bail application moved on behalf of the revisionist.
As per F.I.R. lodged by Satendra Yadav, his sister Shanti (deceased) was married to the Prakash Yadav in the year 2011. Her brother-in-law was working in Gujarat. Deceased was having some strained relations with her Jethani because of which she was living separately from her Jethani with her father-in-law and mother-in-law. On 19.3.2019 some persons of the village had given information on mobile that his sister had been killed and her dead body was lying behind the house in the field of Arhar and, therefore, belief was expressed that accused named in the F.I.R. might have killed her. In post-mortem report, deceased is found to have sustained four injuries and injury no. 1 appears to be the cause of her death.
Submission made by the learned counsel for the revisionist is that revisionist has been falsely implicated. He was not named in the F.I.R.. In the first statement which was recorded of the informant, he did not take name of the revisionist but in the second statement which is annexed at page 73 of the affidavit, it has been stated by him that whenever his sister used to go to village Bhitri, accused-revisionist used to come there to meet her and his activities were suspect. He has drawn attention to the statement of witnesses Ram Raj Yadav, who is father-in-law of the deceased, he has stated that on 19.3.2019 when her daughter-in-law had gone to attend the call of nature between 04:00 to 04:30 pm, at that time he was sleeping in verandah and after some time he heard some sound and saw that deceased was going out for call of nature and soon thereafter the revisionist was seen going from the front of his house. At that very time, his elder daughter-in-law Aneeta and her husband Ram Asre were sleeping and Ashees was also sleeping in the house and the named accused Lal Bahadur, he had gone with Ashish in the said field of Arhar and had got the dead body of the deceased recovered which was placed in verandah. It is further argued by him that he had told the accused-revisionist not to come to his house and that after he is interrogated, the actual culprit might be known. Thereafter revisionist was arrested by the police and pursuant to confessional statement of the accused, recovery of one axe has been made at his pointing out from the field of wheat. It is mentioned in the confessional statement that deceased was his Bhabhi in relation and he was having illicit relation with her for one and half years but she was blackmailing him for last few days for marrying her running away from the home but he was not agreeing to the same and hence he had hatched conspiracy to eliminate the deceased and ultimately killed her by said axe. It is further argued that the evidence which has come on record against the accused is confessional statement which is not supposed to be a very strong evidence against the accused-revisionist as there is no corroboration of the same. It is further argued that age of the revisionist is found to be 16 years 9 months and 11 days on the date of occurrence by the Juvenile Justice Board vide order dated 5.10.2019 and hence a juvenile It is next argued that both the forums i.e. Juvenile Justice Board as well as the appellate court have not taken into consideration the law which is provided for dealing with the bail application of the revisionist and rejected the bail of the revisionist erroneously only on the ground of seriousness of the offence. For considering the bail of juvenile, as per settled law, the gravity of offence is not to be seen. Only three criteria laid down under Section 12 of the Juvenile Justice Act ought to be taken into consideration which are that, if accused-revisionist is released on bail there is no likelihood of his coming in association with any known criminal or that his release would expose him to any moral, physical and psychological danger/threat or that ends of justice would not be defeated by his release. He has further drawn attention to the District Probation Officer's report which does not contain any adverse against the revisionist and his conduct was stated to be good and was shown not to have any criminal antecedents despite this without there being any evidence, both the court below has rejected his bail, therefore, revision should be allowed and accused-revisionist should be released on bail.
Learned A.G.A. has opposed the release of revisionist on bail.
Looking to the fact that this is a case in which only confessional statement is there and pursuant to which recovery of weapon of assault is stated to have been made and further looking to the fact that this is not a case of direct evidence in which anybody had seen the accused-revisionist killing the deceased, this is found to be a fit case for grant of bail to the revisionist.
In view of the above, the revision deserves to be allowed and is accordingly allowed. The impugned order of Juvenile Justice Board dated 30.11.2019 as well as order dated 30.5.2020 of the appellate court are set aside.
Let the Juvenile revisionist- Golu @ Beer Bahadur be released on bail through his father Daya Ram furnishing a personal bond of Rs. one lac and two sureties of the like amount to the satisfaction of the Juvenile Justice Board on furnishing an undertaking that she shall not allow the revisionist to come in association with any hardened criminal and shall take care of his education and well being and that on each and every date of trial, he shall also appear before the court concerned. In case, he makes any default, the prosecution shall be at liberty to move for cancellation of his bail.
Order Date :- 29.1.2021
A.P. Pandey
