Ardham Ranjit Reddy vs The State Of Telangana
2021 Latest Caselaw 725 Tel

           THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE G. SRI DEVI

              CRIMINAL PETITION No.1182 of 2021

ORDER:

This Criminal Petition, under Sections 437 and 439 of the

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, is filed by the petitioners/A-9,

A-10, A-13, A-14 and A-17 seeking to release them on bail in

S.C.No.5 of 2021 on the file of the IX Additional District Judge-cum-

FTC Court, Ranga Reddy District, which was taken cognizance for

the offences punishable under Sections 120-B(1), 302, 364, 379, 448,

449, 341, 342, 352, 323 and 506 read with Section 34 of I.P.C.

As per the charge sheet, the case of the prosecution, in brief,

is that one Chinta Yoga Hemanth Kumar (hereinafter referred to as

'the deceased') fell in love with the de facto complainant and decided

to marry. They belong to different castes. The deceased belongs to

'Vsya Community' and the de facto complainant belongs to 'Reddy

Community'. The parents of the de facto complainant were not happy

with the said love affair and not interested in the proposal of the de

facto complainant to marry the deceased. The parents of the de facto

complainant with the help of their relatives, who are also accused in

the present crime, tried to convince the de facto complainant and the

deceased. They have forcibly taken the cell phone of the de facto

complainant. For sometime they kept silent. Thereafter, the de facto

complainant and the deceased continued to meet each other. They

have also threatened the deceased and his father. But, there is no

change in the attitude of the deceased. The deceased and the de facto

complainant have continued their love affair and ultimately they got

married on 10.06.2020 against the wishes of the parents of the de

facto complainant. Due to the same, the parents of the de facto

complainant were not happy and they felt insult in the society. They

underwent trauma and they have tried to convince their daughter.

But, there was no change in the decision of the de facto

complainant. Therefore, the parents of the de facto complainant have

hatched a plan to do away the life of the deceased. Accordingly,

they have murdered the deceased in connivance with the other

accused for marrying their daughter, which is an inter-caste

marriage.

Heard learned Counsel for the petitioners, learned Assistant

Public Prosecutor appearing for the respondent-State and perused

the record.

Learned Counsel for the petitioners would submit that a bare

reading of the contents of the complaint reveals beyond any doubt

that the petitioners herein, being the relatives of the de facto

complainant visited her house at about 2.30 P.M., on 24.09.2020 for

the purpose of pacifying and reconciling the inter se disputes that

arose between the de facto complainant and her parents on account

of her inter caste marriage against the wishes and consent of her

parents and by escaping from her parents' house. The contents of

the complaint further reveal that the de facto complainant and her

husband having agreed to resolve their inter se disputes with her

parents, agreed to visit the house of her parents and, therefore, they

accompanied the petitioners and started towards the house of her

parents in I-20 Car, however, after travelling for some distance, the

de facto complainant and her husband changed their minds and

have got down from the said Car and ran away. The de facto

complainant admitted in the complaint that thereafter some other

persons, who came in another white colour Swift Car, have taken

her husband, which is suffice to establish that the petitioners are

not involved in kidnapping of neither the de facto complainant nor

her husband. It is also submitted that since the endeavour of the

petitioners to resolve the inter se dispute between the de facto

complainant and her parents took unpredicted turn, they have

dropped their idea of reconciling and left back to their respective

homes on 24.09.2020 itself and, therefore, they cannot be implicated

or associated with the events that took place in their absence. It is

further submitted that the contents of the charge sheet in paragraph

Nos.2, 4 and 7, clearly establish that the petitioners neither involved

in the abduction or conspiracy much less the murder. It is also

submitted that entire investigation has been completed, the police

have filed charge sheet, which was taken cognizance and numbered

as S.C.No.5 of 2021, pending on the file of the IX Additional District

Judge-cum-FTC Court, Ranga Reddy District, as such there is no

threat of tampering the witnesses or influencing/intimidating

either the witnesses or the de facto complainant. It is further

submitted that the evidence collected by the prosecution is found to

be suffered from serious infirmities, inconsistencies and inherent

improbabilities. There were several missing links in the

circumstances put forward by the prosecution and the prosecution

had miserably failed to complete the chain of circumstances by

conclusively establishing that each and every circumstance

unerringly pointed to the guilt of the petitioners, besides the fact

that, no overt or covert act is fastened against the petitioners. It is

also submitted that the petitioners are law abiding citizens and they

do not have criminal antecedents and are having children to take

care of. It is further submitted that there are changed circumstances

from the date of dismissal of the earlier bail applications and now

the entire investigation is over, question of tampering witnesses

does not arise as the police have already filed charge sheet, which

was taken cognizance and numbered as S.C. In support of his

contentions, learned Counsel for the petitioners relied on the

following judgments:-

1. State (NCT of Delhi) v. Shiv Charan Bansal1

2. Myakala Dharmarajan v. State of Telangana2

3. Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan @ Pappu Yadav3

4. Arup Bhuyan v. State of Assam4

5. State of Kerala v. Raneet5

(2020) 2 SCC 290

(2020) 2 SCC 743

(2004) 7 SCC 528

(2011) 3 SCC 377

6. Lingaram Kadopi v. State of Chattisgarh6

Learned Assistant Public Prosecutor would submit that

having regard to the fact that the offences involved are grievous in

nature, the matter has been assigned to Special Court for speedy

trial. If the petitioners have been released on bail, there is every

possibility of threatening or influencing the prosecution witnesses

and it is difficult to secure their presence.

While granting bail, it is necessary for the Court to consider

the following factors among other circumstances:

(a) The nature of accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence;

(b) Reasonable apprehension of tampering of the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant;

(c) Prima facie satisfaction of the Court in support of the charge;

This is the third bail application filed by the petitioners.

After evaluating the entire material on record, another co-ordinate

Bench of this Court, rejected the earlier bail applications filed by the

petitioners.

In State of Tamilnadu vs. S.A.Raja7 the Apex Court held that

without there being any major change of circumstances, another

(2011) 1 SCC 784

(2014) 3 SCC 474

2005 (8) SCC 380

fresh application should not have been dealt with within a short

span of time unless there were valid grounds giving rise to a

tenable case for bail. The Court further held the principles of

res judicata are not applicable to bail applications, but the repeated

filing of the bail applications without there being any change of

circumstances would lead to bad precedents. Filing of the

chargesheet/final report does not amount to a substantial change in

fact-situation.

That apart, as is evident from the record more particularly

call data obtained by the investigating agency would show that

serious allegations are leveled against the petitioners that they

along with other accused, having entered into criminal conspiracy,

abducted the deceased from his house, taken to outskirts of the city

and killed him by way of strangulation and as such the petitioners

have committed heinous offence. Admittedly, the petitioners are

the close relatives of the de facto complainant and as seen from the

call data, they are in touch with the other accused before

commission of offence. The modus operandi adopted by the

petitioners and other accused in the crime would also prima facie

disclose that they have committed the offences to do away the life

of the deceased to separate the de facto complainant from him and

hence, there is apprehension of threat to the de facto complainant.

Further, the apprehension of the learned Assistant Public

Prosecutor that it is difficult to secure the presence of the

petitioners, if they are released on bail, cannot be ruled out.

In view of the aforesaid reasons and since there are no

changed circumstances from the date of dismissal of earlier bail

applications, I am not inclined to grant bail to the petitioners.

Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is dismissed. However,

the learned IX Additional District Judge-cum-F.T.C. Court, Ranga

Reddy District, is directed to complete the trial in the above

Sessions Case, as expeditiously as possible, preferably, within a

period of four months from the date of receipt of a copy of this

order.

____________________ JUSTICE G. SRI DEVI

08.03.2021 Gsn/gkv