In Mamlesh Kumar Singh vs. The State of Bihar, referring to Supreme Court's 6-page long order for suspension of sentence and release on bail in Jitendra and Ors. vs. State of Uttar Pradesh wherein it was held that "mere pendency of the other trial where the appellant-Narendra Singh is an accused (on bail) cannot be regarded as sufficient for denying him the benefit of suspension of sentence in this case. After all, he is presumed to be innocent till found guilty", the order of Patna High Court's division bench of Justices Vipul M. Pancholi and Alok Kumar Pandey observed: "it can be said that presence of antecedents of the accused is only one of the several considerations for deciding the prayer for bail made by the appellant/accused. If the accused makes out a strong prima facie case, depending upon the fact situation and period of custody, the presence of antecedents may not be a ground to deny bail." The Criminal Appeal (DB) was filed on May 16, 2024 against conviction. It was registered May 20, 2024. The case arose out of Ara Nawada thana, Bhojpur in 2017.
The appeal was filed under Section 374(2) read with Section 389(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 against the judgment of conviction dated April 6, 2024 and the order of sentence dated April 18, 2024 rendered by the Additional Sessions Judge-XIII Bhojpur, in Sessions Trial Case, whereby the appellant was convicted for the offences punishable under Sections 302/34 and 307/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 27 of the Arms Act was sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment (RI) for life and a fine of Rs. 50,000/- and, in default of payment of fine, the appellant was further to undergo RI for one year for the offence punishable under Section 302 of IPC. The appellant was also sentenced to undergo RI for ten years and a fine of Rs. 10,000/- and, in default of payment of fine, he was further convicted for three months for the offence punishable under Section 307 of IPC and RI for five years and a fine of Rs. 5,000/-, and, in default of payment of fine, the appellant was to undergo RI for one month for the offence punishable under Section 27 of Arms Act. All the sentence were to run concurrently.
The High Court also relied on 14 page-long judgement dated December 17, 2024 by Supreme Court's division bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Augustine George Masih in Ayub Khan vs. The State of Rajasthan, where it observed: "The presence of the antecedents of the accused is only one of the several considerations for deciding the prayer for bail made by him. In a given case, if the accused makes out a strong prima facie case, depending upon the fact situation and period of incarceration, the presence of antecedents may not be a ground to deny bail. There may be a case where a Court can grant bail only on the ground of long incarceration. The presence of antecedents may not be relevant in such a case. In a given case, the Court may grant default bail. Again, the antecedents of the accused are irrelevant in such a case. Thus, depending upon the peculiar facts, the Court can grant bail notwithstanding the existence of the antecedents. In such cases, the question of incorporating details of antecedents in a tabular form does not arise. If the directions in the case of Jugal Kishore are to be strictly implemented, the Court may have to adjourn the hearing of the bail applications to enable the prosecutor to submit the details in the prescribed tabular format.” The judgement of the Supreme Court was authored by Justice Oka. He observed:"No Constitutional Court can direct the Trial Courts to write orders on bail applications in a particular manner. One Judge of a Constitutional Court may be of the view that Trial courts should use a particular format. The other Judge may be of the view that another format is better." Justice Oka wrote: "A copy of this judgment shall be forwarded to the Registrar General of the High Court of Rajasthan who shall place the same before the Hon’ble Chief Justice of the said Court on administrative side."
In the case of Jugal Kishore vs. State of Rajasthan (2020) 4 RLW 3386, Rajasthan High Court had issued directions to the Trial Courts, which were to be implemented while deciding bail applications. Supreme Court observed that "the decision in the case of Jugal Kishore cannot be construed as mandatory directions to our Criminal Courts. At the highest, it can be taken as a suggestion which need not be implemented in every case. No Constitutional Court can direct the Trial Courts to write orders on bail applications in a particular manner. One Judge of a Constitutional Court may be of the view that Trial courts should use a particular format. The other Judge may be of the view that another format is better." The specific directions passed in Jugal Kishore case have been set aside by the Supreme Court in Special Leave Petition (Crl.) Nos.11675-11676 of 2022 (Rajasthan High Court v. State of Rajasthan and Anr.).
The High Court's order has taken note of the 9-page long order dated May 13, 2024 in Manoj Manzil vs. The State of Bihar by the High Court's division bench of Justices Ashutosh Kumar and Jitendra Kumar which suspended the sentence and granted bail, during the pendency of the appeal, although there were eighteen cases against the Manoj Manzil from Bhojpur before Special Judge, M.P./M.L.A Court-cum-Additional Sessions Judge-III, Bhojpur at Ara in a Sessions Trial.
The High Court observed:" if the details with regard to the antecedents of the appellant are carefully examined, we are of the view that when the appellant has been released on bail in all the cases except the present case and in majority of cases, the FIRs have been filed against him after the year 2018, when the appellant was in custody, we are of the view that false implication of the present appellant cannot be ruled out."
It also observed:"we are of the view that when there is a gross delay of 48 hours in lodging the FIR and there is a delay of three days in sending the same to the Magistrate, and more particularly in view of the evidence led by the prosecution including deposition of PW-8 (Investigating Officer), PW-6 namely, Ranjan Kumar Singh, it transpires that the police reached to the place of occurrence immediately on 27.04.2017 and prepared the seizure list, even statement of the said witness (PW-6) was recorded on the very same day despite which no FIR was lodged against the assailants. What was the version given by PW-6 on the very same day has been suppressed by the prosecution. There is a previous enmity between the parties. Even medical evidence, prima facie, does not support the version given by PW-5, informant, who has claimed to be an eye witness. Thus, looking to the aforesaid peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case, we are of the view that the present is a case where though the prosecution has pointed out about antecedents, as observed hereinabove, majority of cases were filed when the appellant was in custody, the request made by the appellant for grant of bail and for suspension of sentence requires consideration."
The order concludes: "appellant is ordered to be released on bail during pendency of the present appeal on executing bond of Rs. 15,000/- (Rupees Fifteen Thousand) and upon furnishing two sureties of the like amount each to the satisfaction of learned Additional Sessions Judge-XIII Bhojpur, in Sessions Trial Case
No. 42 of 2021 arising out of Ara Nawada P.S. Case No. 150 of 2017 and the sentence imposed by the trial court is suspended so far as this appellant is concerned. It is clarified that the aforesaid observations are tentative observations made by this Court while considering the request of the appellant for grant of bail." Justice Pancholi pronounced the order on February 13, 2025.
The fact remains after the conclusion of the hearing and subsequent to the appreciation of the arguments, Justice Pancholi repeatedly made an oral observation that a case for acquittal has been made out.
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