Allahabad High Court
Upendranath Shukla And Another vs State Of U.P. on 25 May, 2022
Bench: Sanjay Kumar Singh
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 80
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC ANTICIPATORY BAIL APPLICATION U/S 438 CR.P.C. No. - 3127 of 2022
Applicant :- Upendranath Shukla And Another
Opposite Party :- State of U.P.
Counsel for Applicant :- Ashwani Kumar Yadav,Hans Pratap Singh
Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
Hon'ble Sanjay Kumar Singh,J.
Heard learned counsel for the applicants, learned Additional Government Advocate for the State of U.P. and perused the record.
This Criminal Misc. Anticipatory Bail Application under Section 438 Cr.P.C. has been moved by the applicants after rejecting their anticipatory bail application by the order dated 17.02.2022 passed by District and Sessions Judge, Ballia seeking Anticipatory Bail in Case Crime No. 385 of 2018, under Sections 406, 419, 420, 504, 506 IPC, police station Kotwali, District Ballia.
As per prosecution case, in brief, complainant lodged the first information report on 21.09.2018 against Triveni Giri, Tej Bahadur Giri and Upendra Nath Shukla alleging inter alia that accused persons in collusion with each other extracted an amount of Rs. 12 lacs from her on the pretext of getting a sale deed of Arazi No. 271/2 registered in her favour but the sale deed of Arazi No. 195 has been executed in place of Arazi No. 271/2.
The main substratum of argument of learned counsel for the applicants is that the applicants are the witnesses of the registered sale deed and they are not beneficiaries of the sale deed executed in favour of the complainant. Lastly, it is submitted that the applicants have apprehension of imminent arrest and in case, they are released on anticipatory bail, they will not misuse the liberty and would cooperate with the trial.
Learned Additional Government Advocate, who has accepted notice of this case on behalf of State of U.P. has opposed the prayer for granting anticipatory bail to the applicants. It is submitted that in this case first information report was lodged on 21.09.2018 and charge-sheet was submitted on 13.12.2018. Thereafter, the concerned Court below took cognizance of the matter and summoned the accused persons but they did not appear before the concerned Court below. Thereafter, on 10.02.2022, non-bailable warrant has been issued against them and the instant anticipatory bail application has been moved on 28.03.2022.
Object of Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, is that a person should not be unnecessarily harassed or humiliated in order to satisfy personal vendetta or grudge of complainant or any other person operating the things directly or from behind the curtains. It is well settled that discretionary power conferred by the legislature on this court cannot be put in a straitjacket formula, but such discretionary power either grant or refusal of anticipatory bail has to be exercised carefully in appropriate cases with circumspection on the basis of the available material after evaluating the facts of the particular case and considering other relevant factors (nature and gravity of accusation, role attributed to accused, conduct of accused, criminal antecedents, possibility of the applicants to flee from Justice, apprehension of tampering of the witnesses or threat to the complainant, impact of grant of anticipatory bail in investigation, trial or society, etc.) with meticulous precision maintaining balance between the conflicting interest, namely, sanctity of individual liberty and interest of society.
In the light of above, looking to the facts and circumstances of this case, submissions of learned counsel for the parties as mentioned above, taking into consideration the role assigned to the applicants as per prosecution case, gravity and nature of accusation as well as the fact that charge-sheet has been submitted on 13.12.2018 and non-bailable warrant was issued on 10.02.2022 against the applicants and also in view of the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Prem Shankar Prasad Vs. State of Bihar and another, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 955, this Court is of the view that no case for exercising its discretionary power under section 438 Code of Criminal Procedure is made out in favour of applicants.
Accordingly this application under Section 438 Cr.P.C. is rejected.
It is clarified that anything said in this order at this stage is limited to the purpose of determination of this anticipatory bail application and will in no way be construed as an expression on the merits of the case.
Order Date :- 25.5.2022
Shubham
