Mohammed Salman Khan And ORS v. State Of West Bengal And ANR

IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA

Criminal Revisional Jurisdiction 21-08-2023 Item no.40 Subrata Bhattacharyya CRR No.3010 of 2023 Mohammed Salman Khan & Ors.

-vsThe State of West Bengal & Anr.

Mr. Ayan Bhattacharyya Mr. S.E. Huda Mr. Zeeshan Uddin Ms. Amrin Khatoon Mr. Sk. Aptabuddin ...for the petitioners Mr. Saswata Gopal Mukherji, PP Mr. Imran Ali Ms. Debani Sahu ... for the State The petitioners are directed to serve a copy of the revisional application upon Ms Debjani Sau, who usually represents the State. Her appearance may be regularised by the concerned authority. It has been settled by the apex court in the case of Free Legal Aid Committee v. State of Bihar reported in AIR 1982 SC 1463 that until and unless the charge sheet is submitted before the jurisdictional court, the accused persons need not appear before the concerned court.

The order granting anticipatory bail was to the effect that the learned jurisdictional court fixed a date for appearance of the accused. Such appearance ordinarily would be fixed after submission of the charge-sheet before the jurisdictional court. It has been submitted that till date no charge-sheet has been submitted against the petitioners before the jurisdictional court. As such, there is no reason for the accused persons to appear before the trial court. However, in case the trial court feels that there is any scope of evading the process of law, the trial court will direct the accused persons to meet the investigating officer. The same would be

as and when called for and not regular, if not already granted as a condition in the order passed for anticipatory bail. In case the petitioners have already met the investigating officer, then in that case, until and unless it is very urgent or the investigation cannot continue without the physical appearance, ordinarily it would be by way of virtual mode. In case the petitioners are not evading the process of law, then in that case the investigating officer would check the availability of the accused persons. With the above observations, CRR No.3010 of 2023 stands disposed of.

Pending application, if any, is also disposed of. Parties are to act on the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this court. Certified copy of this order, if applied for, shall be made available to the parties.

[Tirthankar Ghosh, J]