Punjab-Haryana High Court

Mumtaj @ Monu vs State Of Haryana on 6 September, 2024

Author: Sandeep Moudgil

Bench: Sandeep Moudgil

                                         Neutral Citation No:=2024:PHHC:116953



CRM-M-42736-2024                                                         -1-

206


             IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA
                          AT CHANDIGARH

                                           CRM-M-42736-2024
                                           DECIDED ON: 06.09.2024

MUMTAJ @ MONU
                                                       .....PETITIONER

                                     VERSUS

STATE OF HARYANA
                                                       .....RESPONDENT

CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL

Present:     Ms. Bhumika Khatri, Advocate for
             Mr. Sahil Choudhary, Advocate
             for the petitioner.

             Mr. B.S. Virk, Sr. DAG, Haryana

SANDEEP MOUDGIL, J (ORAL)

1. Relief sought

The jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked under Section

483 of BNSS, 2023 for grant of regular bail to the petitioner in FIR No.109,

dated 28.02.2022, under Sections 324, 307 and 506 IPC, registered at Police

Station City Panipat, District Panipat.

2. Prosecution story setup in the present case as per the version in

the FIR as under:-

" I Mangat, son of Jeela Singh, resident of village Ahar, police station Matlauda, district Panipat, work as a car driver. On 28.02.2022, after paying the fine for my Eco car, my friend Sunil, son of Suriya, resident of Jizdana, and I went to the bus stand to collect my Eco car. At the bus stand, a conductor of Balaji bus was standing near his bus. My friend Sunil and I approached him to ask

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Monu, the conductor, who owed us Rs. 11,000. When we asked Monu, resident of Chulkana, for the money, he got angry, took out a knife from his pocket, and stabbed my friend Sunil in the chest, after which he ran away. Sunil fell to the ground, and I immediately took him to the civil hospital for treatment. Legal action should be taken against Monu, resident of Chulkana, who fled after threatening to kill Sunil; Mangat, Mobile No.905878295, Date: 28.02.2022."

3. Contentions

On behalf of the petitioner

Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the petitioner

has been falsely implicated in the instant FIR by the complainant due to old

rivalry. He further contends that as per the prosecution story, the petitioner

was armed with knife and gave a blow with the same on the chest of the

injured Sunil and, thereafter, fled away from the spot. He further contends

that despite a lapse of over two and a half years, none of the prosecution

witnesses have been examined.

On behalf of the State

On the other hand, learned State counsel has produced the

custody certificate of the petitioner today in Court, which is taken on record.

He seeks dismissal of the instant petition on the ground that the injury

attributed to the petitioner is with knife which had hit on the chest of the

injured Sunil. He further submits that the petitioner is a habitual offender as

he is involved in four other cases.

4. Analysis

Be that as it may, considering the custody period i.e. 02 years,

04 months and 23 days for which the petitioner has suffered incarceration;

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despite a lapse of over two and a half years, none of the prosecution

witnesses have been examined in addition to the fact that investigation is

complete, challan stands presented to Court on 08.07.2022, charges were

framed on 22.08.2022 and out of total 18 prosecution witnesses, none has

been examined so far, which is suffice for this Court to infer that the

conclusion of trial will take a long time for which the petitioner cannot be

detained behind the bars for an indefinite period.

Reliance can be placed upon the judgment of the Apex Court

rendered in "Dataram versus State of Uttar Pradesh and another", 2018(2)

R.C.R. (Criminal) 131, wherein it has been held that the grant of bail is a

general rule and putting persons in jail or in prison or in correction home is

an exception. Relevant paras of the said judgment is reproduced as under:-

"2. A fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a person is believed to be innocent until found guilty. However, there are instances in our criminal law where a reverse onus has been placed on an accused with regard to some specific offences but that is another matter and does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect of other offences. Yet another important facet of our criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the general rule and putting a person in jail or in a prison or in a correction home (whichever expression one may wish to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result that more and more persons are being incarcerated and for longer periods. This does not do any good to our criminal jurisprudence or to our society.

3. There is no doubt that the grant or denial of bail is entirely the discretion of the judge considering a case but

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even so, the exercise of judicial discretion has been circumscribed by a large number of decisions rendered by this Court and by every High Court in the country. Yet, occasionally there is a necessity to introspect whether denying bail to an accused person is the right thing to do on the facts and in the circumstances of a case.

4. While so introspecting, among the factors that need to be considered is whether the accused was arrested during investigations when that person perhaps has the best opportunity to tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses. If the investigating officer does not find it necessary to arrest an accused person during investigations, a strong case should be made out for placing that person in judicial custody after a charge sheet is filed. Similarly, it is important to ascertain whether the accused was participating in the investigations to the satisfaction of the investigating officer and was not absconding or not appearing when required by the investigating officer. Surely, if an accused is not hiding from the investigating officer or is hiding due to some genuine and expressed fear of being victimised, it would be a factor that a judge would need to consider in an appropriate case. It is also necessary for the judge to consider whether the accused is a first- time offender or has been accused of other offences and if so, the nature of such offences and his or her general conduct. The poverty or the deemed indigent status of an accused is also an extremely important factor and even Parliament has taken notice of it by incorporating an Explanation to section 436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. An equally soft approach to incarceration has been taken by Parliament by inserting section 436A in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

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5. To put it shortly, a humane attitude is required to be adopted by a judge, while dealing with an application for remanding a suspect or an accused person to police custody or judicial custody. There are several reasons for this including maintaining the dignity of an accused person, howsoever poor that person might be, the requirements of Article 21 of the Constitution and the fact that there is enormous overcrowding in prisons, leading to social and other problems as noticed by this Court in In Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons, 2017(4) RCR (Criminal) 416: 2017(5) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.) 408 : (2017) 10 SCC 658

6. The historical background of the provision for bail has been elaborately and lucidly explained in a recent decision delivered in Nikesh Tara chand Shah v. Union of India, 2017 (13) SCALE 609 going back to the days of the Magna Carta. In that decision, reference was made to Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 565 in which it is observed that it was held way back in Nagendra v. King-Emperor, AIR 1924 Calcutta 476 that bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Reference was also made to Emperor v. Hutchinson, AIR 1931 Allahabad 356 wherein it was observed that grant of bail is the rule and refusal is the exception. The provision for bail is therefore age-old and the liberal interpretation to the provision for bail is almost a century old, going back to colonial days.

7. However, we should not be understood to mean that bail should be granted in every case. The grant or refusal of bail is entirely within the discretion of the judge hearing the matter and though that discretion is unfettered, it must be exercised judiciously and in a humane manner and compassionately. Also, conditions for the grant of bail ought not to be so strict as to be

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incapable of compliance, thereby making the grant of bail illusory."

Therefore, to elucidate further, this Court is conscious of the

basic and fundamental principle of law that right to speedy trial is a part of

reasonable, fair and just procedure enshrined under Article 21 of the

Constitution of India. This constitutional right cannot be denied to the

accused as is the mandate of the Apex court in "Hussainara Khatoon and

ors (IV) v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, Patna", (1980) 1 SCC 98.

Besides this, reference can be drawn upon that pre-conviction period of the

under-trials should be as short as possible keeping in view the nature of

accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the

nature of supporting evidence, reasonable apprehension of tampering with

the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant.

As far as the pendency of other cases and involvement of the

petitioner in other cases is concerned, reliance can be placed upon the order

of this Court rendered in CRM-M-25914-2022 titled as "Baljinder Singh

alias Rock vs. State of Punjab" decided on 02.03.2023, wherein, while

referring Article 21 of the Constitution of India, this Court has held that no

doubt, at the time of granting bail, the criminal antecedents of the petitioner

are to be looked into but at the same time it is equally true that the

appreciation of evidence during the course of trial has to be looked into with

reference to the evidence in that case alone and not with respect to the

evidence in the other pending cases. In such eventuality, strict adherence to

the rule of denial of bail on account of pendency of other cases/convictions

in all probability would land the petitioner in a situation of denial of

concession of bail.

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5. DECISION:

In view of the discussions made hereinabove, the petitioner is

hereby directed to be released on regular bail on his furnishing bail and

surety bonds to the satisfaction of the trial Court/Duty Magistrate,

concerned.