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2023 (1) TMI 1349
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....ourt for his appearance; whereas, by order dated 01.09.2022, the trial Court rejected his prayer to cancel said arrest warrant holding that the reasons assigned for seeking cancellation is not bona fide but still kept the execution of the said warrant at abeyance giving him one more chance to appear before the Court on the date so fixed, which has also not been honoured. 4. By preferring this petition under Section 482 of CrPC, the petitioner seeks quashing of both the orders impugned. He has also made a prayer that he be granted bail, but neither has referred to the provisions of bail nor has preferred this petition under Section 438 of CrPC. The reason behind, as we can see is, according to the current roster, the bail matters pertains to Single Bench and the Single Bench dealing with the bail matters has already dismissed his anticipatory bail application vide order dated 10.11.2022 passed in MCrC No.34361 of 2022. 5. The petitioner is being prosecuted for the offence punishable under Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended) in Case No.(SC) CBI/2/2022 pending in the Court of Special Judge (for CBI cases), Bhopal; on the gr....
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.....03.2022, which remained unserved. The Court again issued summons for his appearance on 29.04.2022 but found that it was not properly served. Further, he was summoned for 15.07.2022, again for 03.08.2022 and then for 22.08.2022. All these summons were served. On all three occasions, he did not appear citing reason of illness on first two occasions and reason of visiting his sister in Punjab on the third occasion. On first two occasions, the trial Court believed the reason assigned by him and acceded to his prayer for granting time but refused to do so on the third occasion holding that the reason assigned is not bona fide and that he is deliberately avoiding appearance before the Court. 10. The ld. trial Court further observed that after service of summons, instead of appearing before the Court, the petitioner chose to file an application for anticipatory bail which was later dismissed. 11. Facts further show that after dismissal of his prayer for anticipatory bail by the trial Court, the petitioner approached this Court by filing a petition/application under Section 438 of CrPC as MCrC No.34361 of 2022 and during its pendency, he also filed present petition under Section 482 of ....
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.... the specific provisions made for that very purpose. 19. While dealing with the similar issue in Panful Nessa v. Mohd. Miraj Ali, (2008) 7 SCC 759, the Supreme Court clearly expressed disapproval of practice of granting bail in exercise of inherent jurisdiction and held that : 9. The impugned directions as contained in the impugned order read as follows: "Considering, therefore, the matter in its entirety and in the interest of justice, GR Case No. 444 of 1999 is hereby transferred to the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Darrang. The accused-petitioners are hereby directed to appear in the Court of the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Darrang, Mangaldai, on or before 23-8-2006 and if, on their appearance in the learned court below, the petitioners apply for bail they shall be allowed to go on bail of Rs 10,000 each with two local sureties, each of the like amount, subject to the satisfaction of the learned court below. This direction for bail is further subject to the condition that the petitioners shall keep appearing in the learned court below as may hereafter be directed by it." It is clear that the High Court has not considered the merits of the case. It completely o....
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....on under Section 482 of CrPC into one for bail is not permitted by the Hon'ble Apex Court. In para 4 of the judgment delivered in Savitri Goenka v. Kusum Lata Damani, (2007) 14 SCC 373, it has been held that: 4. It is to be noted that the practice of converting applications filed under Section 482 CrPC to one for bail in terms of Section 438 or 439 CrPC has not been approved by this Court. Additionally, direction was given for issuance of notice and service on the appellant which has not been done by Respondent 1-accused. The fact that the charge-sheet has been filed or bail has been granted is really of no consequence because of the fact that relief in the regular bail application appears to have been granted to Respondent 1 in view of the interim protection given by the High Court to the accused by the impugned order. 21. Years' back in Hamida v. Rashid, (2008) 1 SCC 474, Hon'ble the Supreme Court denounced practice of granting bail in exercise of inherent powers. Expressing its agony and anguish, the Court observed that 'in spite of repeated pronouncements of this Court that inherent power under Section 482 CrPC should be exercised sparingly with circumspection in rar....
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.... they are initiated illegally, vexatiously or without jurisdiction. Most of the cases set out hereinabove fall in this category. It must be remembered that the inherent power is not to be resorted to if there is a specific provision in the Code or any other enactment for redress of the grievance of the aggrieved party. This power should not be exercised against an express bar of law engrafted in any other provision of the Criminal Procedure Code. This power cannot be exercised as against an express bar in some other enactment." .... 10. In the case in hand, the respondents-accused could apply for bail afresh after the offence had been converted into one under Section 304 IPC. They deliberately did not do so and filed a petition under Section 482 CrPC in order to circumvent the procedure whereunder they would have been required to surrender as the bail application could be entertained and heard only if the accused were in custody. It is important to note that no order adverse to the respondentsaccused had been passed by any court nor was there any miscarriage of justice or any illegality. In such circumstances, the High Court committed manifest error of law in entertaining a pet....
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....r muscle power or they may become disinterested in giving evidence, ultimately resulting in miscarriage of justice. (underlined by us) 23. Learned counsel for the petitioner seeks quashment of the impugned orders and prays for bail on the anvil of the decisions rendered by Hon'ble Supreme Court in the cases of Dataram Singh v. State of U.P., (2018) 3 SCC 22, Siddharth v. State of U.P., (2022) 1 SCC 676, Aman Preet Singh v. C.B.I. Through Director, 2021 SCC Online SC 941 (CRA 929/2021 arising out of SLP (Crl.) No. 5234/2021) decided on September 2, 2021 and Satender Kumar Antil v. CBI, (2021) 10 SCC 773 and by this Court in Umendra Kumar Agarwal v. Union of India, MCrC No.16142/2022, Ravindar Kumar Sharma v. Union of India, MCrC No.32074/2022 and Smt. Heera Jain v. Union of India, MCrC No.6621/2022 stating that the petitioner has cooperated with the investigation, therefore, arrest warrant should not have been issued against him and he would have been granted bail but these cases deal with different fact situation and are of no avail to the petitioner. 24. None of the cases cited viz. Dataram Singh, Siddharth, Aman Preet Singh and Satender Kumar Antil (supra) deals with the issue ....
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....th a petition under Section 482 of CrPC and it falls either within the jurisdiction of the trial Court or of the Single Bench of this Court. The petitioner himself is very well aware of this fact and had already unsuccessfully invoked such jurisdiction. Now, this Court cannot usurp such jurisdiction under the garb of inherent powers conferred under Section 482 of CrPC. Such practice has been deprecated by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. In a recent judgment pronounced in Sumitha Pradeep v. Arun Kumar C.K., 2022 SCC OnLine SC 1529, the Apex Court has held that no necessity of custodial investigation cannot be a sole ground to grant anticipatory bail to the applicant. Relevant para 15 & 16 of the judgment reads thus: 15. Be that as it may, even assuming it a case where Respondent No. 1 is not required for custodial interrogation, we are satisfied that the High Court ought not to have granted discretionary relief of anticipatory bail. 16. We are dealing with a matter wherein the original complainant (appellant herein) has come before this Court praying that the anticipatory bail granted by the High Court to the accused should be cancelled. To put it in other words, the complainant ....
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....esses being tampered with, the larger interests of the public or State and similar other considerations. The relevant considerations or guiding principles governing the court's decision in granting bail, has been laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in plethora of decisions. We can usefully refer one of such decisions pronounced in Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee, (2010) 14 SCC 496. Para 9 of this judgment reads as under: 9. We are of the opinion that the impugned order is clearly unsustainable. It is trite that this Court does not, normally, interfere with an order passed by the High Court granting or rejecting bail to the accused. However, it is equally incumbent upon the High Court to exercise its discretion judiciously, cautiously and strictly in compliance with the basic principles laid down in a plethora of decisions of this Court on the point. It is well settled that, among other circumstances, the factors to be borne in mind while considering an application for bail are: (i) whether there is any prima facie or reasonable ground to believe that the accused had committed the offence; (ii) nature and gravity of the accusation; (iii) severity of the ....
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....ivolity in prosecution should always be considered and it is only the element of genuineness that shall have to be considered in the matter of grant of bail and in the event of there being some doubt as to the genuineness of the prosecution, in the normal course of events, the accused is entitled to an order of bail. 28. Also see Bhadresh Bipinbhai Sheth v. State of Gujarat, (2016) 1 SCC 152 and Pokar Ram v. State of Rajasthan, (1985) 2 SCC 597. 29. In Anil Kumar Singh v. High Court of Patna, (2020) 19 SCC 364, a three Judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that the petitioners are willing to join the investigation and there is no need for custodial interrogation of the petitioners or that the petitioners held a high office, does not ipso facto entitle them to anticipatory bail. 30. Citing several earlier judgments in P. Chidambaram v. Directorate of Enforcement, (2019) 9 SCC 24, the Supreme Court observed that power under Section 438 of CrPC is an extraordinary power and the same has to be exercised sparingly. The privilege of the pre-arrest bail should be granted only in exceptional cases. The judicial discretion conferred upon the court has to be properly exercised after appli....