Supreme Court grants bail due to failure to explain delay of eight days in lodging F.I.R., Justice Rajiv Roy had denied it on account of grievous injury

Unlike Justice Rajiv Roy of Patna High Court who had denied bail by his order dated February 23, 2026, taking into account the grievous injury caused to the informant’s brother sustained and confirmed the order dated August 1, 2025 passed by the District and Additional Sessions Judge 1st-cum-Special Judge of SC/ST Act, Sheikhpura, Supreme Court's  Division Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta passed an order dated July 14, 2026 in Rajan Kumar @ Ranjan Kumar @ Ranjan & Ors. vs.The State of Bihar & Anr. (2026) granted bail.  

Supreme Court was persuaded by the submission that the F.I.R. was lodged after the delay of eight days of incident and, apparently, there was no explanation for the delay. By way of interim order, in the event of arrest, the petitioners be released on bail in connection with F.I.R.No.28 of 2025 dated June 27, 2025, registered at Police Station Sheikhpura, Sheikhpura district. 

The incident had happened on May 23, 2012 at 7 PM. Anandi Paswan, the respondent no. 2 in the High Court had lodged the FIR after his house caught fire allegedly by 1. Nasir Miyan, 2. Babbar Miyan, 3. Jumman Miyan, 4. Kurim Miyan. They were standing outside and were saying that burn the whole family along with the house and Nasir Miyan was throwing Kerosin oil from the can into the fire. The entire house of the Paswan was burnt to ashes due to the fire and the household items worth thousands of rupees kept in the house were burnt to ashes. His goat tied to a rope in the house also got burnt and injured due to the fire and while extinguishing the fire, Anandi Paswan's son Ashish Kumar's hand got burnt. The main reason for the incident was that the people of the village are domineering, unruly and have criminal tendencies and the people of the village are poor, straight and of Harijan caste. That he wants to keep the informant as slaves and make them to do their work for free. When the informant refused, they always used to beat, abuse and insult him.

In such a backdrop, the delay appears to have caused because of the reluctance of the local police after a complaint was filed by the advocate of Paswan in the trial court, Sheikhpura.