Punjab-Haryana High Court
Sandeep Kaur vs State Of Punjab on 18 March, 2025
Author: Sandeep Moudgil
Bench: Sandeep Moudgil
Neutral Citation No:=2025:PHHC:036995
CRM-M-13290-2025 -1-
243
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA
AT CHANDIGARH
CRM-M-13290-2025
DECIDED ON: 18.03.2025
SANDEEP KAUR
.....PETITIONER
VERSUS
STATE OF PUNJAB
.....RESPONDENT
CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL
Present: Mr. Lovish Rattan, Advocate
for the petitioner.
Mr. Jasjit Singh Rattu, DAG, Punjab.
SANDEEP MOUDGIL, J (ORAL)
1. Relief Sought
The jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked under Section
439 Cr.P.C. for grant of regular bail to the petitioner in FIR No.255, dated
04.12.2021, under Sections 365 (302, 201, 120-B added later on and Section
365 deleted) IPC, registered at Police Station Goindwal Sahib, District Tarn
Taran.
2. Facts
Facts as narrated in the FIR read as under:-
"Statement of Sandeep Kaur wife of Baljit Singh Resident of
Kamboa presently R/o Goindwal Sahib Police Station
Goindwal Sahib aged about 27 years Mobile No. 77101-57697
stated that I am a resident of the abovesaid address and
working as a laborer. My marriage took place with Baljit Singh
S/ Jagtar Singh R/o Village Kambo. After the marriage, I had 2
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children, one boy and one girl. The name of the boy is
Harmanpreet Singh who is aged about 8 years and younger girl
is named Parveen Kaur who is fair, cut mark on the forehead
and wearing pink pajama, white red blue boxed top, carrot t-
shirt underneath and the height of the girl is 3 feet 6 inches.
That my girl Praveen Kaur on 30.11.2021 at around 06 o'clock
in the evening at had gone to pay respects at Gurdwara Bauli
Sahib, Goindwal Sahib. When my daughter Parveen kaur did
not return back to the house after long, we started looking for
her. Me and my sister Suman, neighbor Laddo and her husband
searched for her near the house, Gurudwara Bauli Sahib and
relatives a lot but could not find any trace of the girl. Till now
we kept searching on our own. I could not find any trace of my
daughter. Now I am completely sure that my daughter is
Praveen Kaur, has been abducted by an unknown person with
some motive. I doubt that my daughter should not be harmed.
Today I alongwith my father, Gursewak Singh, mother Raj Kaur
were coming to you for providing the information, that I have
met you on the way. Appropriate legal action should be taken
against the unknown person who abducted the girl. The
statement was written and heard. It is correct. /- Sandeep Kaur
Verification by Kuldeep Singh ASI Police Station Goindwal
Sahib Date 04.12.2021 Action Police:- Today Mind ASI
including ASI Kulwinder Singh No. 115/P.T.A., HC Nirmal
Singh 26/P.T.A., PHG Channanjit Singh 9884 was riding a
private vehicle, patrolling and searching for the checking
vehicle of a suspicious person near Baba Jeevan Singh Chowk.,
when I met with abovesaid complainant, Suman, her Father
Gursevak Singh, her mother Raj Kaur came and wrote her
statement which was read out to her who accepted her
statement as correct and signed her statement in Punjabi which
statement was also confirmed by Gursevak Singh and Raj Kaur.
The statement which I have verified is found to be a crime
under 365 IPC, on which the statement is sent to the police
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station of PHG Channanjit Singh 9884 to register the case.
Additional officers sent in the service should be informed that
the ASI will take the complainant along with us and conduct an
investigation. - Kuldeep Singh ASI Goindwal..."
3. Contentions
On behalf of the petitioner
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the FIR was
initially registered against unknown individuals, and its contents lack
credibility. The allegations, it's claimed, were made with malicious intent to
harass the petitioner, who had parted ways with the complainant.
Furthermore, no evidence or recoveries have been made from the petitioner,
which suggests that she has been wrongly implicated in the case. The
petitioner's counsel asserts that the police have targeted her merely to close
the case, despite a complete lack of evidence linking her to the alleged
incident. The attention of this Court has been drawn to an orders dated
18.03.2024 &10.07.2024 (Annexure P-6 collectively) passed in CRM-M-
57442-2023 & CRM-M-15229-2024 respectively vide which co-accused
persons namely Balwinder Singh @ Kaka and Sumandeep Kaur, have
already been granted the concession of bail by this Court.
On behalf of the State
On the other hand, learned State counsel has vehemently
opposed the grant of concession of bail to the petitioner but does not deny
the long incarceration suffered by the petitioner and filed the custody
certificate, which is taken on record.
4. Analysis
Considering the long incarceration of the petitioner i.e., 3 years,
3 months and 3 days and not involved in any other case, meaning thereby he
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is a person of clean antecedents coupled with the fact that the material
witness Jit Singh @ Jita has absented himself despite being bound down,
who is the only witness who had stated that he had seen all the accused
taking the child to the doctor and the complainant has failed to identify the
petitioner and has turned hostile.
This Court is sanguine of the fact that conclusion of trial shall
take considerable time, as out of total 22 prosecution witnesses, only 7 have
been examined so far after framing of charges on 28.07.2022, no useful
purpose would be served by keeping the petitioner 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
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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 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
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
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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.
6. Relief:
In view of the discussions made hereinabove, the petitioner is
hereby directed to be released on regular bail subject to his furnishing bail
and surety bonds to the satisfaction of the trial Court/Duty Magistrate,
concerned.
In the afore-said terms, the present petition is hereby allowed.
However, it is made clear that anything stated hereinabove shall
not be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits of the case.
(SANDEEP MOUDGIL)
18.03.2025 JUDGE
Sham
Whether speaking/reasoned Yes/No
Whether reportable Yes/No
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