Syed Abuthahir v. The State Rep By

C.V.KARTHIKEYAN , J.

The petitioner/A2 seeks anticipatory bail in Crime No.51 of 2024 registered by the respondent Police for the offences punishable under Sections 457, 380, 414 of IPC, with respect to an occurrence took place on 15.02.2024.

2. It is stated that A1, A3 to A7 had been arrested and are still in custody. There are no previous cases as against the petitioner herein.

3. It is the case of the prosecution that the defacto complainant had found that his Maruti Vitara Breeza car bearing Registration No.TN-06-Y1281 had been missing. He had gone to the Regional Transport Office, Nagapattinam for transfer of vehicle name in the records and found that the vehicle registration number, chassis number and engine number mismatched. Therefore, he had questioned this petitioner and at that time this car went missing. The bail application of A1, A3 to A7 had been dismissed by the learned Judicial Magistrate.

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4. The matter came up for hearing on 04.03.2024 on which date it was directed to file a counter. In the counter affidavit, it had been stated that a car bearing Registration No.TN-06-Y-1281, Maruti Vitara Breeza white colour car and another car bearing Registration No.TN-18-BL-7072 red color car were seized. The Maruti Vitara white colour car is the car involved and another car namely red colour was noticed by the defacto complainant when the Maruti Vitara Breeza car had been stolen.

5. It is the case of the respondent, that this petitioner, had given instructions for the theft of Maruti Vitara Breeza car. Naturally, further investigation will have to be done about the Modus operandi and mismatch between the registration number, so far as the chassis number and engine number are concerned, and the actual number had gone missing.

6. The learned counsel for the petitioner stated that the petitioner is prepared to return back the amount received towards purchase of car. 2/4

7. It is also the contention that he has nothing to do with the other accused. It is also contended that the petitioner was in Trichy and was not at the particular place, when the Maruti Vittara freeza car was actually stolen from the house of the defacto complainant. But all these aspects will have to come back to the petitioner, since originally he had sold the car to the defacto complainant and in that car, there was mismatch of the engine number, chassis number, and whether the car originally belongs to one Mr.Suthakar and the reasons for the theft of particular car, will have to be examined. This requires further investigation.

8. Taking all those factors into consideration, I am not inclined to grant anticipatory bail to the petitioner. Accordingly, this Criminal Original Petition stands dismissed.

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C.V.KARTHIKEYAN , J.

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