1996 (7) TMI 602

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....sequent to the registration of an F.I.R. upon a complaint filed by the respondent, Duman Singh (hereinafter called "the complainant"). The accused and his family members had been involved in a longstanding dispute over a certain piece of land. Being apprehensive of a quarrel, the local police had initiated proceedings under Section 145 of the CrPC, 1973. In the F.I.R., the complainant alleges that he was led to believe that the accused and his family members had, on 28.5.1993, violated the Tehsildar's order not to interfere with the land and had ploughed the land and sown a paddy crop. To verify whether this was true, the complainant and a few others went to the village of the accused. He alleges that after having confirmed the news, he....

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....Without expressing any opinion on the merits of this case, I deem it a fit case to grant bail to the petitioner to the satisfaction of the CJM, Ludhiana. The accused was, therefore, released on bail. Thereafter, aggrieved by the order, the complainant made a representation to the Chief Minister of Punjab stating that the accused had issued threats to him, a copy of which was sent to the Chief Justice of the Punjab & Haryana High Court. This letter was treated as a petition for cancellation of bail and was heard by V.K. Bali, J., the learned Judge who had, in the first place, granted bail to the accused. 5. In the impugned judgment, the learned Judge states that while seeking bail, the accused had concealed material facts from the Cour....

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.... in the impugned judgment, the learned Judge had not sought to provide any explanation for disregarding these grounds. The learned Counsel further submits that a careful reading of the F.I.R. would reveal that the complainant's party had a motive to attack the accused; they were carrying arms; they had covered a distance of 12 kms. in search of the accused's party and, had engaged in an assault which left one person dead and several injured in the accused's party. The learned Counsel states that the reasons given by the learned Judge for cancelling the bail are unsustainable - he submits that the existence of cross-versions is not related to the filing of challans and, equally, that it cannot be presumed that the accused was awa....

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....ation of the bail granted earlier. At the outset, we must state that we doubt the advisability of the learned Judge's decision to treat the copy of a complaint made to the Chief Minister against grant of bail as an application for cancellation of the bail. Nothing had stopped or prevented the respondent from filing a regular application for cancellation of bail if there existed valid grounds for the same. We need say no more on this point because, what is important is to find out if the learned Judge was justified in cancelling the bail granted on merits. 9. In the main, two grounds are put forward for cancellation of the bail, namely, (i) that the accused was guilty of suppression of the material fact that his co-accused's bail ....