Telangana High Court: G. Sri Devi, J., while addressing a bail application filed in a case of ‘Honour Killing’ enumerated the factors that are significant while granting bail.
Instant criminal petition was filed under Sections 437 and 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 seeking to release the petitioners on bail.
Prosecution’s Case
In the Charge-Sheet it was stated that the deceased – Chinta Yoga Hemanth Kumar fell in love with the de facto complainant and decided to marry her. Both of them belonged to different castes due to which their parents were not happy.
Parents of the de facto complainant, with relatives, help tried to convince the de facto complainant and the deceased and forcibly took away the de facto complainant’s phone. But the love affair continued, and marriage was solemnized.
It was stated that the parents of the de facto complainant hatched a plan to do away with the life of the deceased and murdered the deceased in connivance with the other accused of marrying their daughter, which was an inter-caste marriage.
Important factors while granting bail
While granting bai1, it is necessary for the Court to consider the following factors among other circumstances:
(a) The nature of accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence;
(b) Reasonable apprehension of tampering of the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant
(c) Prima facie satisfaction of the Court in support of the charge;
It was noted that the present was the third bail application by the petitioners as the previous ones were rejected by the co-ordinate Bench of this Court.
In the Supreme Court decision of State of T.N. v. S.A. Raja, (2005) 8 SCC 380, it was observed that:
“…principles of res judicata are not applicable to bail applications, but the repeated filing of the bail applications without there being any change of circumstances would lead to bad precedents.”
Bench in lights of the facts and circumstances along with evidence placed on record, noted that the modus operandi adopted by the petitioners and other accused in the crime would also prima facie disclose that they committed the offences to do away the life of the deceased in order to separate the de factor complainant from him.
High Court also added that the Assistant Public Prosecutor’s apprehension that it was difficult to secure the presence of the petitioners, if they were released on bail could not be ruled out.
Hence, since no change of circumstances from the date of dismissal of earlier bail applications was found, present bail application was rejected. [Ardham Ranjit Reddy v. State of Telangana, 2021 SCC OnLine TS 320, decided on 08-03-2021]