Sentence of life imprisonment suspended, appellant released on bail by Patna High Court

In Dara Singh @ Abhijit Singh @ Abhijeet Singh vs. The State of Bihar (2024), Patna High Court's Division Bench of Justices Ashutosh Kumar and Khatim Reza suspended the sentence of the appellant. The appellant was directed to be release on bail, during pendency of the appeal, on his furnishing bonds in the sum of Rs. 10,000 with two sureties of like amount each to the satisfaction of the Additional Sessions Judge -I, Rohtas at Sasaram in connection with a Sessions Trial arising out of a case from Kachhawa Police Station. The direction for realization of fine was stayed till final hearing of the appeal. The sole appellant was convicted under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code by judgment dated November 7, 2023 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge -I, Rohtas at Sasaram in Sessions Trial. By order dated November 24, 2023, he was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life along with a fine of Rs. 2,00,000/- and in default of payment of fine, to further suffer rigorous imprisonment for three years for the offence under Section 302 IPC. The case was filed in the High Court on December 15, 2023. It was registered on January 12, 2024. The case is pending before the Court of Acting Chief Justice.

In its order, the Division Bench observed:" The name of the assailant was not known to the Investigator when he had first received the information. However, he knew about the identity of the deceased. This also creates some doubt for the reason that if the name of the deceased was known to the Investigator, the name of the assailant also would have been known." It also recorded that "the Investigator had visited the place of occurrence on the next day when he did not find any blood stained earth. He did not seize any blood stained earth also." The Court was informed that "the weapon of assault was not seized and, therefore, not produced before the Trial Court. The motorcycle which was used by the appellant to come to the P.O. and fire at the deceased, has also not been seized and produced before the Trial Court." The order was authored by Justice Kumar and delivered on April 18, 2024.

On the day of occurrence i.e. May 28, 2019, the appellant was shown to be present at his place of work. The deposition of the Defence Witnesses, the S.D.O., the Revenue Accountant and the Kanungo at the place where the appellant is employed testified to the fact that the appellant was present on the day of the occurrence in his office for the whole day. Notably, the appellant was posted 400 kms away as Revenue Accountant. It was not possible for him to have been traversed in a day or before the occurrence. It was submitted before the Court that the motive attributed for killing the deceased does not appear to be logical. There was some dispute two years ago with respect to the parking of the bus of which the deceased was the driver, which dispute admittedly had got settled. In fact, the case also was not lodged by the appellant but by the owner of the bus against the appellant. The deceased incidentally was the driver of that bus in question, because of which, there had been some dispute in the past.