Through this post, we will dissect the essentials for granting a regular bail in the cases involving various sections of IPC including murder and conspiracy by delving deep into the niche aspects of the law. We look at this scenario in light of the judgement passed by the Punjab-Haryana High Court in the case of Rajiv Chail v. State of Punjab on 13th February, 2020. The reader can access the full judgement by clicking on the affixed link herein below.
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Statement of Facts: Rajiv Chail v. State of Punjab
Date of Decision: 13th February 2020.
- CRM-M-2207-2019 (O&M)
2. CRM-M-24258-2019 (O&M)
Section: 148, 149, 323 & Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
Chandigarh
F.I.R. Number: 77 dated 14th April2018 registered at Police Station city Phagwara, District Kapurthala.
The present petitions have been filed asking for the regular bail to both the petitioners i.e. Rajiv Chail and Inderjit Karwal in various offences including that of murder and conspiracy under sections 302, 307, 323, 353, 186, 283, 188, 160, 148, 149 of IPC, Sections 25/57 of Arms Act, Sections 3(1)(t) & 3 (2)(v) of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and Section 3 of Prevention of Damage to Property Act, 2014.
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The petitioners have placed reliance on the order passed on 15th March 2019 where the court had dismissed the regular bail petition filed by the co-accused. Further, the FIR was registered against thirty-three individuals and it also had under one-fifty unknown individuals’ names. The followers of Shiv Sena gathered with deadly weapons and had raised provocative and anti- religious slogans. Also, they stated that according to the statement given by Kulwinder Singh, the firing on Yashwant Kumar was done by four individuals namely Deepak Bhardwaj, Rajiv Chahal, Inderjit Karwal and Shivi Batta. Also, it was a mutual fight and the opposite party has already been granted the bail; the petitioner’s bail has been only rebuffed on the ground of his involvement in the murder of Yashwant Kumar. It is important to note that petitioner was found in possession of .22 of inch revolver and the other accused had a revolver of .32 inch. And when the report of Foreign Science Laboratory came, the cartridges were found to be live and the .32″ revolvers were found to be in working condition. Moreover, there was no evidence to prove that from which revolver the particular lead has been fired.
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Opposing these claims, the state counsel brought to the knowledge of the court that the deceased’s mother had recalled petitioner’s name and inform the police about it. In fact, she named all the individuals and the weapons which they were carrying and while informing this fact, she specifically named the petitioner. On such grounds, the state counsel requested the court to dismiss the petitioner’s petition for regular bail.
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The court after examining the arguments put forth by both the parties and perusing the contents of the FIR as well as other documents available on record.
As it was a free fight, nothing can be said about the aggressive nature of specific parties. Further, it is still not ascertained that which revolver was used to fire the deceased i.e. Yashwant Kumar.
The report produced by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory essentially states that
“Two .32″ S&WL revolver cartridges were test fired through each of the .32″ revolvers and on test firing, the .32” revolvers were found to be in working condition.
AND
It’s not possible to form any definite opinion regarding any link between the fired deformed lead bullets and the irregular lead piece with respect to the .32″ revolvers due to lack of sufficient individual characteristic marks present on them”
It is clear that no definite conclusion can be drawn with respect to two deformed and badly damaged lead bullets. Further it is also not clear whether these revolvers had been used to fire or not.Allegations state that the petitioner along with Shivi Batta had fired shots from their revolvers that eventually killed Yashwant.Subsequently, the offence of murder was addedand owing to this reason the petitioner cannot be considered at par with co-accused, who have been released on regular bail. Thus no ground is made out to release him on regular bail at this stage.The petition is accordingly dismissed; however, court noted that “the petitioner is at liberty to file petition for bail after recording the statement of injured and complainant.”
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The petitioner then argued that the petitioner has been in custody for a long time now and no arrest has been made of any person of Ambedkar Sena despite the fact that it was noticed in the first version of police that it was a free fight between both the sides.When the petitioner pointed that the police may be acting partial, the state averred that many of the persons were innocent and the police has not conducted the fair and impartial investigation in the case.
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Then, the complainant brought to the notice of the court that according to the report filed by the police, weapons of all the four accused persons namely Deepak Bhardwaj, Rajiv Chahal, Inderjit Karwal and Shivi Bhatta were there in the said weapons and live cartridges showing the same had been used by the individuals.They also attacked on the credibility of the petitioner as there are other criminal cases pending against him.After dissecting all the arguments put forth by both the counsels of the parties and perusal of the evidences placed on record and after considering the fact that regular bail application of one of the co-accused Deepak Bhardwaj already stands dismissed by this Court.
Order:
The Court thus dismissd the petitions filed by both the petitioners. However, it said that here only the bail applications were addressed and the judgement will have no bearing on the merits of the actualcase.
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For case specific advice, please contact Criminal Regular Bail Lawyers in Punjab Haryana High Court in Chandigarh Panchkula Mohali Zirakpur Kharar Derabassi etc.
This post is written by Aniket Panchal.
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