CRLA/708/2023
2023 Latest Caselaw 3048 UK

                   Office Notes,
                reports, orders or
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Sl. No   Date                                   COURT'S OR JUDGES'S ORDERS
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                                     IA No.01 of 2023 (Bail Application)
                                     With
                                     CRLA No.708 of 2023
                                     Hon'ble Sharad Kumar Sharma, J.

Mr. V.S. Chauhan, Advocate, for the appellant.

Mr. B.C. Joshi, Brief Holder, for the State of Uttarakhand.

Admit.

Summon the lower court record. List as soon as the records of the court below are received.

The appellant is a convict as a consequence of the judgment of conviction dated 22.08.2023, as it was rendered by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, POCSO, Haridwar in Special Sessions Trial No.82 of 2022, "State Vs. Praveen Kumar", whereby he has been convicted for the offences under sections 354, 342, 506 of IPC and under section 7/8 of the POCSO Act.

As a consequence of the judgment of the conviction, he has been directed to undergo a sentence of two years for the offence under section 354 of IPC; one year imprisonment for the offence under section 342 and 506 of IPC; three years of imprisonment for the offence under sections 7/8 of the POCSO Act.

As per the records and the observations made in the impugned judgment, the appellant was taken in custody on 10.05.2022, and was not on bail during the course of the trial. As of now, after rendering of the judgment of the conviction, he has already served about one year and five months of sentence, i.e. approximately half of the sentence has already been served by him.

Besides this, there are various other contentions raised by the learned counsel for the applicant in support of the bail application that the prosecution case has not been established beyond doubt by the appraisal of evidence which was not rightly appraised by the learned trial court for the purposes of justifying the conviction for the present appellant for the offences, for which he has been convicted by the impugned judgment. Merely looking for the fact that the appellant has already served one year and five months of sentence, and he was not on bail during the course of trial.

Owing to the aforesaid, the appellant is directed to be released on bail, subject to the furnishing of his personal bond and two sureties of the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned.

However, the release of the applicant would be subject to the condition of depositing the penalty amount of Rs.25,000/- as imposed by the judgment of the conviction upon the appellant.

(Sharad Kumar Sharma, J.) 10.10.2023 NR