1980 (3) TMI 258

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....ly elevating. But romance about human rights and rhetoric about constitutional mandates lose credibility if, in practice, the protectors of law and minions of the State become engines of terror and panic people into fear. We are constrained to make these observations as our conscience is in consternation when we read the facts of the case which have given rise to the order challenged before us in this petition for special leave. The petitioner, who has appeared in person is the complainant in a criminal case where the accused are 2 Sub- Inspectors and 8 Constables attached to the City Police Station, Ahmednagar. The charges against them, as disclosed in the private complaint, are of murder and allied offences under ss. 302, 341, 395, 404....

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.... sessions court for bail and, in an elaborate order the sessions court granted bail subject to certain directions and conditions. The High Court, which was moved by the complainant for reversal of the order enlarging the accused on bail, declined to interfere in revision but added additional conditions to ensure that the bail was not abused and the course of justice was not thwarted. It is fair to state that the case in the complaint, verified under s. 202 Cr. P.C. to have some veracity, does not make us leap to a conclusion of guilt or refusal of bail. On the contrary, the accused policemen have a version that the victim was himself a criminal and was sought to be arrested. An encounter ensued, both sides sustained injuries and the dece....

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.... To be satisfied about a prima facie case is needed but it is not the same as an exhaustive exploration of the merits in the order itself. Grant of bail is within the jurisdiction of the Sessions Judge but the court must not, in grave cases, gullibly dismiss the possibility of police-accused intimidating the witnesses with cavalier ease. In our country, intimidation by policemen, when they are themselves accused of offences, is not an unknown phenomenon and the judicial process will carry credibility with the community only if it views impartially and with commonsense the pros and cons, undeterred by the psychic pressure of police presence as indicates. Let us now get to grips with the two legal submissions made by the petitioner. The....

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....g agency or other police or allied authority or is under the control of the court having been remanded by judicial order, or having offered himself to the court's jurisdiction and submitted to its orders by physical presence. No lexical dexterity nor precedential profusion is needed to come to the realistic conclusion that he who is under the control of the court or is in the physical hold of an officer with coercive power is in custody for the purpose of s. 439. This word is of elastic semantics but its core meaning is that the law has taken control of the person. The equivocatory quibblings and hide-and-seek niceties sometimes heard in court that the police have taken a man into informal custody but not arrested him, have detained him....

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....ication. It could have refused bail and remanded the accused to custody, but, in the circumstances and for the reasons mentioned by it, exercised its jurisdiction in favour of grant of bail. The High Court added to the conditions subject to which bail was to be granted and mentioned that the accused had submitted to the custody of the court. We therefore, do not proceed to upset the order on this ground. Had the circumstances been different we would have demolished the order for bail. We may frankly state that had we been left to ourselves we might not have granted bail but sitting under Art. 136 do not feel that we should interfere with a discretion exercised by the two courts below. We are apprehensive that the accused being police off....