Mahesh Sahu v. Govt. Of NCT Of Delhi
$~6 * IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI + BAIL APPLN. 920/2020 MAHESH SAHU .....Petitioner Through:
Ms. Sakshi Mehley, Advocate.
versus GOVT. OF NCT OF DELHI ....Respondent Through:
Mr. Mukesh Kumar, APP for State.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE NAJMI WAZIRI
O R D E R
% 15.06.2020
1. The hearing was conducted through video conferencing.
2. The petitioner seeks bail in FIR No. 265/2016 registered under sections 420/467/468/471/34 IPC at Police Station Dabri, New Delhi. He has been charged of complicity in defrauding a large number of people of their monies. However, the learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner's name is not even mentioned in the FIR, which names only three persons viz. Jagdish Sharma, Jawahar Singh and Ashok Sharma. Of these only Jawahar Singh is in custody and other two have not been arrested. Albeit, in the chargesheet it has been alleged that relevant material was recovered at the instance of Jagdish Sharma and Jawahar Singh, but no incriminating material has been recovered from the petitioner. His involvement is alluded only on the basis of the alleged disclosure statement of Jawahar Singh. The petitioner contends that hit is not the prosecution's case, that the petitioner was the one who had actually forged the documents. The forgery or alleged issuance of slips etc.
was done by some other person and not by the petitioner. The Chargesheet does not disclose recovery of any monies or incriminatory documents from the possession of the petitioner.
3. According to the learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the State, the petitioner owns nine properties. This is promptly refuted by the learned counsel for the petitioner. She states that the properties of the petitioner's relatives have been clubbed. She submits that of the nine properties referred to in the Status Report filed on 08.06.2020, the properties at Sr. Nos. 4 to 8 are not owned by him, property at Sl. No. 9 was sold by the petitioner in the year 2015 and properties at Sl. Nos. 1 to 3 have been acquired by him, his wife and his son, respectively. He cannot have any say apropos properties at Sl. Nos. 2 and 3. However apropos property at Sl. No. 1, the petitioner undertakes not to create third party rights and interests therein till further orders.
4. The learned counsel for the petitioner refers to the dicta of the Supreme Court in Sanjay Chandra vs. CBI, (2012) 1 SCC 49 in support of the bail application. The said judgement was recently reiterated by the High Court of Judicature at Himachal Pradesh vide its judgments dated 05.06.2020 in Cr. MP (M) No. 678 of 2020, which held, inter alia, as under:
"..... 3. Needless to say object of the bail is to secure the attendance of the accused in the trial and the proper test to be applied in the solution of the question whether bail should be granted or refused is whether it is probable that the party will appear to take his trial. Otherwise, bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Otherwise also, normal rule is of bail and not jail. Court has to keep in mind nature of accusations, nature of evidence in support thereof, severity
of the punishment which conviction will entail, character of the accused, circumstances which are peculiar to the accused involved in that crime.
4. The Hon'ble Apex Court in Sanjay Chandra versus Central Bureau of Investigation (2012)1 Supreme Court Cases 49; held as under:- " The object of bail is to secure the appearance of the accused person at his trial by reasonable amount of bail. The object of bail is neither punitive nor preventative. Deprivation of liberty must be considered a punishment, unless it can be required to ensure that an accused person will stand his trial when called upon. The Courts owe more than verbal respect to the principle that punishment begins after conviction, and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and duly found guilty. Detention in custody pending completion of trial could be a cause of great hardship.
From time to time, necessity demands that some unconvicted persons should be held in custody pending trial to secure their attendance at the trial but in such cases, "necessity" is the operative test. In India , it would be quite contrary to the concept of personal liberty enshrined in the Constitution that any person should be punished in respect of any matter, upon which, he has not been convicted or that in any circumstances, he should be deprived of his liberty upon only the belief that he will tamper with the witnesses if left at liberty, save in the most extraordinary circumstances.
refuse bail to an unconvicted person for the propose of giving him a taste of imprisonment as a lesson."
5. In Manoranjana Sinh Alias Gupta versus CBI 2017 (5) SCC 218, The Hon'ble Apex Court has held as under:- " This Court in Sanjay Chandra v. CBI, also involving an economic offence of formidable magnitude, while dealing with the issue of grant of bail, had observed that deprivation of liberty must be considered a punishment unless it is required to ensure that an accused person would stand his trial when called upon and that the courts owe more than verbal respect to the principle that punishment begins after conviction and that every man is deemed to be innocent until duly tried and found guilty. It was underlined that the object of bail is neither punitive or preventive.
This Court sounded a caveat that any imprisonment before conviction has a substantial punitive content and it would be improper for any court to refuse bail as a mark of disapproval of a conduct whether an accused has been convicted for it or not or to refuse bail to an unconvicted person for the purpose of giving him to taste of imprisonment as a lesson. It was enunciated that since the jurisdiction to grant bail to an accused pending trial or in appeal against conviction is discretionary in nature, it has to be exercised with care ad caution by balancing the valuable right of liberty of an individual and the interest of the society in general.
It was elucidated that the seriousness of the charge, is no doubt one of the relevant considerations while examining the application of bail but it was not only the test or the factor and the grant or denial of such privilege, is regulated to a large extent by the facts and circumstances of each particular case.
That detention in custody of under trial prisoners for an indefinite period would amount to violation of Article 21 of the Constitution was highlighted."
6. The Hon'ble Apex Court in Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee and Another (2010) 14 SCC 496, has laid down the following principles to be kept in mind, while deciding petition for bail:
(i) whether there is any prima facie or reasonable ground to believe that the accused had committed the offence;
(ii) nature and gravity of the accusation;
(iii) severity of the punishment in the event of conviction;
(iv) danger of the accused absconding or fleeing, if released on bail;
(v) character, behaviour, means, position and standing of the accused;
(vi) likelihood of the offence being repeated; (vii) reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being influenced; and (viii) danger, of course, of justice being thwarted by grant of bail.
7. Reliance is placed on judgment passed by the Hon'ble Apex Court in case titled Umarmia Alias Mamumia v. State of Gujarat, (2017) 2 SCC 731, relevant para whereof has been reproduced herein below:- "11. This Court has consistently recognised the right of the accused for a speedy trial. Delay in criminal trial has been held to be in violation of the right guaranteed to an accused under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. (See: Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee v. Union of India, (1994) 6 SCC 731; Shaheen Welfare Assn. v.
Union of India, (1996) 2 SCC 616) Accused, even in cases under TADA, have been released on bail on the ground that they have been in jail for a long period of time and there was no likelihood of the completion of the trial at the earliest. (See: Paramjit Singh v. State (NCT of Delhi), (1999) 9 SCC 252 and Babba v. State of Maharashtra, (2005) 11 SCC 569).
8. Recently, the Hon'ble Apex Court in Criminal Appeal No. 227/2018, Dataram Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr., decided on 6.2.2018, has categorically held that a fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a person is believed to be innocent until found guilty. Hon'ble Apex Court further held that while considering prayer for grant of bail, it is important to ascertain whether the accused was participating in the investigations to the satisfaction of the investigating officer and was not absconding or not appearing when required by the investigating officer. Hon'ble Apex Court further held that if an accused is not hiding from the investigating officer or is hiding due to some genuine and expressed fear of being victimized, it would be a factor that a judge would need to consider in an appropriate case. The relevant paras of the aforesaid judgment are reproduced as under:
"2. A fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a person is believed to be innocent until found guilty. However, there are instances in our criminal law where a reverse onus has been placed on an accused with regard to some specific offences but that is another matter and does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect of other offences. Yet another important facet of our criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the general rule and putting a person in jail or in a prison or in a correction home
(whichever expression one may wish to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result that more and more persons are being incarcerated and for longer periods. This does not do any good to our criminal jurisprudence or to our society.
3. There is no doubt that the grant or denial of bail is entirely the discretion of the judge considering a case but even so, the exercise of judicial discretion has been circumscribed by a large number of decisions rendered by this Court and by every High Court in the country. Yet, occasionally there is a necessity to introspect whether denying bail to an accused person is the right thing to do on the facts and in the circumstances of a case.
4. While so introspecting, among the factors that need to be considered is whether the accused was arrested during investigations when that person perhaps has the best opportunity to tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses. If the investigating officer does not find it necessary to arrest an accused person during investigations, a strong case should be made out for placing that person in judicial custody after a charge sheet is filed. Similarly, it is important to ascertain whether the accused was participating in the investigations to the satisfaction of the investigating officer and was not absconding or not appearing when required by the investigating officer. Surely, if an accused is not hiding from the investigating officer or is hiding due to some genuine and expressed fear of being victimised, it would be a factor that a judge would need to consider in an appropriate case. It is also necessary for the judge to
consider whether the accused is a first-time offender or has been accused of other offences and if so, the nature of such offences and his or her general conduct. The poverty or the deemed indigent status of an accused is also an extremely important factor and even Parliament has taken notice of it by incorporating an Explanation to Section 436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. An equally soft approach to incarceration has been taken by Parliament by inserting Section 436A in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
5. To put it shortly, a humane attitude is required to be adopted by a judge, while dealing with an application for remanding a suspect or an accused person to police custody or judicial custody. There are several reasons for this including maintaining the dignity of an accused person, howsoever poor that person might be, the requirements of Article 21 of the Constitution and the fact that there is enormous overcrowding in prisons, leading to social and other problems as noticed by this Court in In Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 prisons .."
5. In view of the above, the petitioner is granted bail, on his furnishing a personal bond in the sum of Rs.25,000/- with a surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the Jail Superintendent/Duty MM concerned. The bail is granted subject to the following conditions: (i) The applicant shall keep the SHO/IO concerned informed of his whereabouts every Friday beween 11 and 11.30 a.m through video call and if a video call is not possible, he may send SMS apropos his whereabouts, as well as "drop-a-pin" on location app (eg. Google Maps) to indicate his location. The IO's
telephone number shall be provided to the learned counsel for the petitioner.
(ii) The applicant shall not leave the territory of NCT of Delhi. (iii) The applicant shall not contact complainant(s) in any manner and shall not do anything which will prejudice the case of the prosecution.
(iv) The applicant shall provide his contact number to the IO/SHO concerned and shall ensure that such number is reachable at all times.
6. The application is disposed-off in terms of the above.
7. Nothing stated in this order shall be deemed to be an adjudication on the merits of the case. The Registry is directed to send a copy of this order to the Jail Superintendent concerned for due compliance.
8. The order be uploaded on the website forthwith. Copy of the order be also forwarded to the counsels through email. NAJMI WAZIRI, J JUNE 15, 2020/RW