Amardeep @ Bhuriya v. State Of Haryana

IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH

Sr. No.: 213 Criminal Miscellaneous No.M-21322 of 2024 Date of Decision: July 07, 2025 Amardeep @ Bhuriya ..... PETITIONER(S)

VERSUS

State of Haryana ..... RESPONDENT(S)

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL PRESENT: - Mr. Manvinder Sidhu, Advocate, for the petitioner. Ms. Mayuri Lakhanpal Kalia, Deputy Advocate General, Haryana.

SANDEEP MOUDGIL, J (Oral) 1.

Relief sought The jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked under Section 439 Cr.P.C. for grant of regular bail to the petitioner in FIR No.279 dated 17.06.2021 under Sections 302, 307, 148, 149, 323, 452, 506, 120-B IPC and Section 25 of Arms Act, 1959 registered at Police Station, Meham, District Rohtak.

2.

Prosecution story setup in the present case as per the version in the FIR as under:- "To The SHO, P.S. Maham, Rohtak. Respected Sir, It is submitted that 1, Jagdish S/o Mange Ram permanent resident of Village Saman,. I am 60 years old. 1 have two sons elder Rohit, age 23year and younger son Nitin, age 19 years and I have three daughter elder Ritu age 36 years then Sonia age 32 years, and younger daughter Neha age 28 years. Yesterday on dated 16.06.2021,I was present at my house with my family. My daughter Sonia's husband Anesh, who is paralyzed, is working in Haryana Police, had come to my house and was sitting on the bedin the room in my house, my son-in-law Anesh, my son Rohit and Nitin, my wife Roshni and Sandeep son of Satyawan all were sitting and talking. At about 09:00 P.M.

Bala wife of Kuldeep crossed in front of my house while giving abuses and threatening. After that, 4-5 motorcycles stopped outside of my house, on which 5-6 young boys entered in our house while firing and after entering inside they started firing. In fear I hide myself at one side of the bed. My son Rohit, my son-in-law Anesh and Sandeep son of Satyawan received gun shot during the firing.

CRM-M-21322-2024 [2] when I and my wife Roshni and my daughter made noise and tried to catch the accused but they fled away while firing and threatening to kill. 1 snatched a pistol from Amit @ Mittu, in the scuffle which is in my possession, I will present the same to you. When we chased them, one motorcycle was left on the spot and other boys who were standing outside on the motorcycle left the spot while firing. I have recognized some boys, out of which Mittu son of Rajinder, Ramlu son of Kuldeep, Vikas Matri son of Kuldeep, Sandeep son of Ramphal. I can identify other boys on producing in presence of me. All the above and Dillu son of Rajinder all already are in custody in another case. Under conspiracy and with intention to kill, they fired on us. We have admitted the injured persons at Rohtak Hospital after managing the vehicle.

My son Rohit died due to gunshot injury. Whose dead body is lying at PGIMS Rohtak. Legal action should be taken against above all. The reason of enmity was altercation between the Children, in December 2020, which was later on settlement in the Panchayat. After that they started having grudge with me and my children and threaten to kill us. A complaint has been given to you at Kainos Hospital at Village Kheri Sadh, Rohtak Sd/-Jagdish."

3.

Contention On behalf of the petitioner Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that petitioner has been falsely implicated in the FIR wherein he is alleged of handing over the weapon to co-accused Akshay. It is further contended that nothing is to be recovered from the petitioner. Out of 59 witnesses, only 4 have been examined and he has already undergone 3 years and 10 months. Co-accused of the petitioner, namely Pawan @ Ramlu, Vinay have already been released on bail by this Court vide order dated 14.12.2023 passed in CRM-M-16608 of 2022. On behalf of the State State counsel has filed custody certificate alongwith Status report by way of affidavit of Sandeep Kumar, HPS, DSP, Meham, District Rohtak, which has been taken on record. Copy supplied to the counsel opposite. Registry to do the needful.

State counsel prays for dismissal of the instant petition by citing other cases against the petitioner. She further submits that the petitoner

CRM-M-21322-2024 [3] entered into the house and Khushi Ram handed over the weapon to him, whereafter he opened the fire. Therefore, the petitioner does not deserve the concession of bail.

4.

Analysis Be that as it may, considering the custody period i.e. 3 years and 10 months, for which the petitioner has suffered incarceration; co-accused namely Pawan @ Ramlu, Vinay have already been released on bail by this Court vide order dated 14.12.2023 passed in CRM-M-16608 of 2022.; and as per the principle of the criminal jurisprudence, no one should be considered guilty, till the guilt is proved beyond reasonable doubt, whereas in the instant case, challan stands presented on 26.11.2021; charge was framed on 06.03.2025, and total cited witnesses are 59 in number and only 4 stands examined so far which is sufficient for this Court to infer that the conclusion of trial is likely to take considerable time and therefore, detaining the petitioner behind the bars for an indefinite period would solve no purpose.

Reliance can be placed upon the judgment of the Apex Court rendered in "Dataram versus State of Uttar Pradesh and another", 2018(2) R.C.R. (Criminal) 131, wherein it has been held that the grant of bail is a general rule and putting persons in jail or in prison or in correction home is an exception. Relevant paras of the said judgment is 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.

CRM-M-21322-2024 [4] 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

CRM-M-21322-2024 [5] 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, 2017(4) RCR (Criminal) 416: 2017(5) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.) 408 : (2017) 10 SCC 658

6. The historical background of the provision for bail has been elaborately and lucidly explained in a recent decision delivered in Nikesh Tara chand Shah v. Union of India, 2017 (13) SCALE 609 going back to the days of the Magna Carta. In that decision, reference was made to Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 565 in which it is observed that it was held way back in Nagendra v. King-Emperor, AIR 1924 Calcutta 476 that bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Reference was also made to Emperor v. Hutchinson, AIR 1931 Allahabad 356 wherein

CRM-M-21322-2024 [6] it was observed that grant of bail is the rule and refusal is the exception. The provision for bail is therefore age-old and the liberal interpretation to the provision for bail is almost a century old, going back to colonial days.

7. However, we should not be understood to mean that bail should be granted in every case. The grant or refusal of bail is entirely within the discretion of the judge hearing the matter and though that discretion is unfettered, it must be exercised judiciously and in a humane manner and compassionately. Also, conditions for the grant of bail ought not to be so strict as to be incapable of compliance, thereby making the grant of bail illusory."

Therefore, to elucidate further, this Court is conscious of the basic and fundamental principle of law that right to speedy trial is a part of reasonable, fair and just procedure enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This constitutional right cannot be denied to the accused as is the mandate of the Apex court in "Hussainara Khatoon and ors (IV) v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, Patna", (1980) 1 SCC 98. Besides this, reference can be drawn upon that pre-conviction period of the under-trials should be as short as possible keeping in view the nature of accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence, reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant.

As far as the pendency of other cases and involvement of the petitioner in other cases is concerned, reliance can be placed upon the order of this Court rendered in CRM-M-25914-2022 titled as "Baljinder Singh alias Rock vs. State of Punjab" decided on 02.03.2023, wherein, while

CRM-M-21322-2024 [7] referring Article 21 of the Constitution of India, this Court has held that no doubt, at the time of granting bail, the criminal antecedents of the petitioner are to be looked into but at the same time it is equally true that the appreciation of evidence during the course of trial has to be looked into with reference to the evidence in that case alone and not with respect to the evidence in the other pending cases. In such eventuality, strict adherence to the rule of denial of bail on account of pendency of other cases/convictions in all probability would land the petitioner in a situation of denial of the concession of bail.

5.

DECISION:

In view of the discussions made hereinabove, the petitioner is hereby directed to be released on regular bail on him furnishing bail and surety bonds to the satisfaction of the trial Court/Duty Magistrate, concerned. In the afore-said terms, the present petition is hereby allowed. However, it is made clear that anything stated hereinabove shall not be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits of the case. (SANDEEP MOUDGIL) Judge July 07, 2025 avin Whether Speaking/ Reasoned:

Yes/ No Whether Reportable:

Yes/ No