Allahabad High Court: While dismissing the bail application in case registered under Section 302, 120-B Penal Code, 1860, Sameer Jain, J. held that parity cannot become the sole criteria to grant bail.
Applicant is the cousin brother of the deceased. FIR was lodged against the applicant and his parents with the allegation that applicant along with his parents ablazed the sister of informant by pouring kerosene oil and during the course of treatment she succumbed to her injuries. The dying declaration of the deceased was recorded by the Additional City Magistrate-III on the date of incident in the hospital in which she stated that applicant, his parents and brother of applicant dragged her in their home and after pouring kerosine oil ablazed her.
Counsel for the applicant submitted that entire allegation made in the FIR and in the dying declaration of the deceased was totally false and baseless and initially, during investigation, the accusation made against the applicant and his parents were found false. He vehemently submitted that co-accused have already been enlarged on bail by the co-ordinate Bench of this Court and as per dying declaration the allegation against the applicant is also at par with those accused persons, who have been enlarged on bail, therefore, on the ground of parity applicant should also be released on bail.
AGA submitted that there is specific allegation against the applicant in the dying declaration of the deceased recorded by the Additional City Magistrate-III and while granting bail to co-accused the dying declaration of the deceased could not be discussed, therefore, on the ground of parity applicant should not be released on bail.
The Court noted that the informant was not the eye-witness but Additional City Magistrate- III recorded the dying declaration of the deceased and from its perusal there is specific allegation against the applicant and co-accused. The Court from the perusal of the bail orders of other co-accused found that they were given bail without assigning any reasons. They were released on bail merely on the basis of argument advanced by counsel for the co-accused persons.
The Court reiterated the recent Supreme Court case of Birjmani Devi v. Pappu Kumar, (2022) 4 SCC 497 where the Court deprecated the practice to allow bail application without assigning any reason observing,
“38. Thus, while elaborating reasons may not be assigned for grant of bail, at the same time an order de hors reasoning or bereft of the relevant reasons cannot result in grant of bail. It would be only a non speaking order which is an instance of violation of principles of natural justice. In such a case the prosecution or the informant has a right to assail the order before a higher forum.”
The Court dismissed the bail application stating that parity cannot become the sole criteria to grant bail and if the bail granted to similarly placed co-accused persons without assigning any reasons then on the basis of such bail orders merely on the ground of parity, the bail application should not be allowed and parity can only be persuasive in nature and cannot be binding.
[Manish v. State of U.P., 2022 SCC OnLine All 429, decided on 22-06-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr Kapil Tyagi, Advocate, for the Applicant;
Mr Arvind Kumar, Advocate, for the Opposite Party.
*Suchita Shukla, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.