Himachal Pradesh High Court: Sandeep Sharma J. dismissed both writ petitions filed by the petitioners stating that the freedom of an individual cannot be curtailed for indefinite period on the basis of suspicion, especially when his/her guilt is yet to be proved, in accordance with law.
The instant case is represented by counsel N.K. Thakur, with Divya Raj Singh for petitioners and Sudhir Bhatnagar, Arvind Sharma and Anil Jaswal for respondents.
The petitioner was taken into custody on 10.01.2020 charged under Section 3 (II) (I) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and subsequently was released on bail subject to his furnishing personal bonds in the sum of Rs 20,000 to the satisfaction of the concerned Court. The status report which is prepared on the basis of the investigation carried out by the Investigating Agency was perused and returned stating that pursuant to order dated 10.1.2020, bail petitioner has joined the investigation and he is fully cooperating. It was further stated that nothing remains to be recovered from the bail petitioner.
The Court finds that investigation in the case is complete and nothing is required to be recovered from the bail petitioner, hence no reason left for custodial interrogation of the bail petitioner, especially when guilt, if any, is yet to be determined, in accordance with law on the basis of totality of evidence to be collected on record by the Investigating Agency.
The Court relied on the Supreme Court Judgment, Dataram Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2018) 3 SCC 22 decided while deciding the present case.
Bench held that object of the bail is to secure the attendance of the accused in the trial and the proper test to be applied in the solution of the question whether bail should be granted or refused is whether it is probable that the party will appear to take his trial. Bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Court has to keep in mind nature of accusations, nature of evidence in support thereof, severity of the punishment which conviction will entail, character of the accused, circumstances which are peculiar to the accused involved in that crime.
In view of the above, the bail petitions are disposed of. [Keshva Nand v. State of H.P., 2020 SCC OnLine HP 258, decided on 25-02-2020]
