Kudupudi Srinu vs The State Of Andhra Pradesh
2022 Latest Caselaw 4765 AP

     THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAVI CHEEMALAPATI

               CRIMINAL PETITION No.5477 OF 2022

ORDER:

This Criminal Petition is filed under Sections 437 & 439 of Criminal

Procedure Code ('Cr.P.C.' in short), seeking regular bail, by the

petitioners/Accused Nos.121, 224 and 286 in Crime No.139 of 2022 of

Amalapuram Town Police Station, East Godavari District, registered for the

offences punishable under Sections 307, 143, 144, 147, 148, 151, 152,

332, 336, 427, 188, 353, 324 and 435 read with 149 of I.P.C.; Sections 3

and 4 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 (for short,

'the PDPP Act') and Section 32 of the Police Act, 1861.

2. The facts of the case, in brief, are that the Village Revenue Officer

(V.R.O.), Ward Nos.1 and 30 of Amalapuram gave a report stating that on

24.05.2022, at about 4:00 P.M., on a call given by JAC of Konaseema

Sadhana Committee for submission of objections/representation pursuant

to the Gazette Notification, huge number of people gathered near

Collectorate of Konaseema District situated at 30th Ward and when police

tried to control the mob, the mob pelted stones on police officers and

caused injuries and also burnt BVC College Bus, which is meant for police

bandobasth. Further, the mob also pelted stones on Ambedkar Bhavan,

which is situated opposite to Collectorate, and caused damage. Hence,

the above crime was registered.

3. Heard Sri Dasari S.V.V.S.V.Prasad, learned counsel for the

petitioners and Sri Sravan Kumar Naidana, learned Special Assistant Public

Prosecutor for the respondent-State.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioners contended that initially the case

was registered against 47 persons as accused and thereafter, the police

implicated the names of the petitioners as accused on the presumptions

and assumptions. It is further contended that some of the accused were

granted anticipatory bail in Criminal Petition Nos.4169 and 4526 of 2022,

who are A5 and A42 and A33 and A16 in the above referred crimes and

requested to consider enlarging the petitioners on bail on any conditions

that may be imposed. Earlier, the petitioners 1 and 2 filed Crl.M.P.No.147

of 2022 and the 3rd petitioner filed Crl.M.P.No.219 of 2022 for grant of bail

and they were dismissed by the learned Sessions Judge on 04.07.2022.

5. On the other hand, the learned Special Assistant Public Prosecutor

submitted that the involvement of the petitioners is evident from the

photographs taken at the scene of offence and investigation is still

pending. If at all this Court wants to consider the present bail petition, in

such case, he draw the attention of the Court to the decision of the

Hon'ble Supreme Court in Kodungallu Film Society v. Union of India1

wherein it is held as follows:

C. Liability of person causing violence

a) .......

          b)      .......

          c)      A person arrested for either committing or initiating,

promoting, instigating or in any way causing to occur any act of violence which results in loss of life or damage to property may be granted conditional bail upon depositing the quantified loss caused due to such violence or furnishing security for such quantified loss. ....."

Relying on the judgment cited supra, the learned Special Assistant

Public Prosecutor, prayed this Court to impose some costs for the loss

caused to the State.

(2018) 10 SCC 713 : 2018 SCC Online SC 1719

6. A perusal of the complaint discloses that initially the petitioners'

names are not reflected, but on the confession statement of A1, the

petitioners names are reflected in the above crime.

The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners that

petitioners herein are falsely implicated in these crimes due to political

differences whereas according to the prosecution, petitioners are active

participants in the rally and they executed illegal acts as per conspiracy of

their leaders.

The learned Public Prosecutor specifically urged that petitioners'

custody is important in this case, since according to the prosecution, they

are active participants in hatching up the plan through whatsapp group

and other social media platform, which resulted in occurrence of large-

scale violence and other related executing the illegal acts as conspired.

Further, admittedly the mob consists of more than 1000 people.

None of the complaints indicate about common intention or common

object of committing an offence punishable under Section 307 IPC.

Specific overt acts were not attributed against the petitioners.

It is also evident from the record that the mob gathered for

submitting their representations at Collectorate office, but not with an

intention of committing any offence and admittedly the mob was not

armed with weapons. Photographs filed by prosecution do not show that

mob is armed with weapons.

Till today, there is no material to show that the petitioners have

damaged any property. In view of the same, the decision relied on by the

learned Special Assistant Public Prosecutor cannot be made applicable at

this stage and his request to impose costs cannot be considered.

On perusal of the material on record, considering the submissions

of the both the parties and in view of the fact that the other accused were

already granted anticipatory bail by this Court whereas the petitioners are

languishing in jail, this Court feels it appropriate to consider granting bail

to the petitioners on the following conditions:

(i) The petitioners shall be released on bail on their executing self bond for Rs.50,000/- (Rupees fifty thousand only) each with two sureties each for a like sum each to the satisfaction of the learned Principal Junior Civil Judge-cum-Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Amalapuram;

(ii) The petitioners shall appear before the concerned Station House Officer, twice in a week i.e. on every Monday and Thursday between 9.00 a.m. and 12.00 noon, till filing of the charge sheet;

(iii) The petitioners shall not directly or indirectly contact the complainant or any other witnesses under any circumstances and any such attempt shall be construed as an attempt of influencing the witnesses and shall not tamper the evidence and shall co-operate with the investigation.

(iv) The petitioners shall furnish their mobile phone numbers and residential address as well as that of their sureties to the I.O./SHO concerned and they shall keep their mobile phones operational at all times during this period and in the event of any change of the same, they shall immediately inform the same to the I.O./S.H.O. and,

(v) The petitioners shall drop a pin location on Google Maps so that the location of the petitioners is available to the Investigation Officer.

Further, the petitioner shall scrupulously comply with the above conditions and breach of any of the above conditions will be viewed seriously and bail automatically gets cancelled without any further order of this Court.

Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is allowed.

Miscellaneous applications, pending if any, shall stand closed.

________________________ JUSTICE RAVI CHEEMALAPATI Date: 01.08.2022 Ivd

THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE RAVI CHEEMALAPATI

CRIMINAL PETITION No.5477 OF 2022

Date : 01.08.2022

Ivd