Thursday, January 23, 2025

Saran parliamentary election violence case reaches Supreme Court

On January 20, 2025, in Nagendra Ray vs. The State of Bihar and Kamakhya Singh @ Deepu Singh, the Supreme Court's bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan granted permission to file the special leave petition. Subhasish Bhowmick, counsel appearing for the petitioner, drew the attention of the Court towards the judgment of the trial court, more particularly paragraph ‘6‘ where certain video footage of the incident has been referred to. The order reads: "It is noted by the trial court that the presence of the respondent no.2 is revealed therefrom, and he is part of the unlawful assembly. According to Mr. Bhowmick, the High Court does not even remotely refer  to this video footage while granting bail to the respondent no.2. Issue Notice." The case arose out of impugned final judgment and order dated October 23, 2024 in Kamakhya Singh @ Deepu Singh vs. The State of Bihar (2024) passed by Justice Satyavrat Verma of the Patna High Court. 

Apprehending his arrest Kamakhya Singh @ Deepu Singh, in a case registered for the offences punishable under Sections 147, 148, 149, 307, 302/34 and 120(B) of the Indian Penal Code as well as Section 27 of the Arms Act, the petitioner had approached the High Court. The petitioner submitted that he is a person with clean antecedent and the informant alleges that on May 20, 2024 during Lok Sabha Election at Booth No. 318 and 319, Rohini Acharya, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate came when some miscreants abused and misbehaved with her and also attacked her for which Chapra P.S. Case No. 342 of 2024 was instituted. It was next alleged that on account of the said occurrence dated May 20, 2024, 12 named accused persons including the petitioner on May 21, 2024 along with 40-50 unknown accused came variously armed and intercepted his son Chandan Ram at 07:00 a.m. at Bhikhari Chauk. Further, on orders of Chandan Singh, Manoj Kumar Singh and Mintu Singh, accused Ramakant Singh shot the son of the informant on his chest, thereafter petitioner shot Guddu Kumar causing injury on his waist while Ram Pratap Singh shot Manoj Ram causing injury on his temple and Satya Nand Singh shot Deepak causing injury on his right rib. It is next alleged that on alarm, the informant along with others came at the place of occurrence when the accused persons fled away and the injured were taken to the hospital where the Doctor declared Chandan Rai dead.

The petitioner submitted that he has been falsely implicated in the instant case by the informant. It was also submitted that no overt act has been alleged against the petitioner. It is next submitted that from perusal of the allegation as alleged in the FIR, it would manifest that informant is not an eyewitness to the occurrence as he himself has stated in the FIR that the accused persons fled away when they saw that informant along with others are coming towards the place of occurrence on hearing the sound of firing. It was submitted that no doubt Chandan Rai died but then allegation of firing is against Ramakant Singh. It is submitted that the allegation does not even remotely suggest that on what basis the informant alleges that petitioner was also present at the place of occurrence when it is not disclosed in the FIR that he came to know about the presence of the accused persons including the petitioner by any of the injured or any eyewitness to the occurrence. It was also submitted that the FIR was instituted on May 21, 2024 and the petitioner was not even aware that he has been implicated in the instant case as accused no. 11 and the police in haste applied for process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. on July 1, 2024 and the same also came to be issued in a mechanical manner when the law is clear that process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. is not to be issued for mere asking and for helping the police in investigation. It was submitted that after the petitioner came to know about the institution of the instant FIR, he approached the District Court in the month of August, 2024 seeking anticipatory bail which came to be rejected. It was submitted that the occurrence took place at 07:00 a.m. in the morning and the FIR came to be instituted at 08:30 p.m. in the evening on the same day i.e. after more than twelve hours but still the FIR does not disclose that on what basis the informant came to know about the involvement of the petitioner in the occurrence. It was further submitted by the counsel of that petitioner will not abscond and he will cooperate in the investigation to prove his innocence.

The counsel appearing for the informant had opposed the prayer for anticipatory bail of the petitioner and submitted that similarly situated co-accused Mithilesh Singh @ Mithilesh Kumar Singh had approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail in Cr. Misc. No. 63918 of 2024 but the same came to be rejected on the ground that process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. has been issued by an order dated October 23, 2024. 

The counsel appearing for the petitioner submits that petitioner is not similarly situated like Mithilesh Singh @ Mithilesh Kumar Singh as he was alleged to have fired causing injury to Guddu on his waist when against the petitioner there is no specific allegation.

The High Court concurred with the submission of the petitioner's counsel who contended that the informant was not an eyewitness to the occurrence nor the FIR discloses that on what basis the informant had alleged that petitioner was also present at the place of occurrence and process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. was not to be issued for mere asking for helping the police in the investigation, rather process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. was issued for ensuring the presence of the accused before the court.

The High Court's order reads: "Considering the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner, let the petitioner above-named, in the event of his arrest or surrender before the learned Court below within a period of six weeks from today, be released on anticipatory bail on furnishing bail bonds of Rs.10,000/-(Rupees Ten Thousand) with two sureties of the like amount each to the satisfaction of the learned court below where the case is pending/successor court in connection with Chapra Town P.S. Case No. 346 of 2024, subject to the conditions as laid down under Section 438 (2) of the Cr.P.C." 

Rohini Acharya (44) was a candidate from Saran during the parliamentary elections. The voting was on May 20, 2024 and results were announced on June 4, 2024. Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the candidate of BJP contested successfully against her.  

The numerical analysis of the election results and voter turnout percentage conducted by revealed that the subsequent hike in voter turnout disproportionately benefited the winning candidate. The voter percentile increase in Bihar's three parliamentary constituencies including Saran has been recorded in Report: Conduct of Lok Sabha Elections 2024:Analysis of ‘Vote Manipulation’ and ‘Misconduct during Voting and Counting (July 30, 2024). The voter percentile increase in Bihar was 3.30 %. Total original votes were 3.52 crore votes. 11.60 lakh votes spread over 40 parliamentary constituencies was hiked or dumped. 29 thousand votes per constituency was increased. The situation in Saran, Araria and Shehar is quite stark. Notably, in Saran, the BJP’s margin of victory is 13,661 votes. In Araria, the BJP’s margin of victory is 20,094 voters and in Sheohar, the JDU’s margin of victory is 29,143 votes. Rudy got 471,752 votes, which is 46.18 % of votes. Acharya got 4,58,091 votes, which is 44.84 % of votes.  

Significantly, in order to defect Rohini Acharya, Laxaman Prao Yadav was put as an independent who secured 22041 votes which is 2.16 of the votes, Shak Naushad was put as an independent who secured 16101 votes which is 1.58 % votes and Avinash Kumar of Bahujan Samaj Party secured 14708 votes which is 1.45 % of the votes


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