Maya Ankur v. The State Of West Bengal
19-02-2025 (ct. no. 29) KOLE Allowed CRM (DB) 17 of 2025 In re: An application for bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure/Section 483 of the BNSS in connection with Sadaipur Police Station Case No. 49 of 2023 dated 08.03.2023 under Sections 302/201/120B/34 of the Indian Penal Code. - A n d - In the matter of : Maya Ankur .... Petitioner.
Mr. Saryati Datta, Mr. Sanjit Kr. Dan, Mr. C. Biswas, ... For the Petitioner.
Mr. S. Bapuli, Mr. Mujibar Ali Naskar, ... For the State.
Order dictated by Arijit Banerjee, J.:
1.
Status report filed by the State in terms of our earlier order be kept with the records.
2.
We see from the report that there are 26 charge sheet named witnesses. PW 1 has been examined in part. The next dates fixed are April 21, 22 and 23, 2025. The report does not mention how many witnesses the prosecution intends to examine. Therefore, we have to proceed on the basis that the prosecution proposes to examine all 26 witnesses.
3.
The report towards the end mentions that evidence will be completed within 6 to 7 months. The same seems to be practically impossible.
4.
The petitioner is in custody for more than one year eleven months.
5.
The case is entirely based on circumstantial evidence. The petitioner is a lady aged about 43 years.
6.
Since we do not find any possibility of an early conclusion of the trial and the petitioner has already been in custody for about
two years, without touching the merits of the case and solely on the touchstone of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, we are inclined to enlarge the petitioner on bail.
7.
Accordingly, we direct that the petitioner, namely, Maya Ankur, shall be released on bail upon furnishing a bond of Rs. 10,000/-, with two sureties of like amount each, one of whom must be local, to the satisfaction of the Learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Suri, Birbhum subject to condition that she shall appear before the trial court on every date of hearing until further orders and shall not intimidate witnesses or tamper with evidence in any manner whatsoever and on further condition that the petitioner while on bail shall not leave the jurisdiction of the Sadaipur police station excepting for the purpose of attending court proceeding until further orders.
8.
In the event the petitioner fails to adhere to any of the conditions stipulated above without justifiable cause, the trial court shall be at liberty to cancel the petitioner's bail in accordance with law without further reference to this court.
9.
The application for bail is, accordingly, allowed. 10.
All parties shall act in terms of server copy of the order downloaded from the official website of this Court. ( Apurba Sinha Ray, J. ) ( Arijit Banerjee, J. )