Patna High Court: A revision petition was filed by petitioner against the impugned order passed by Sub Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Nalanda (‘the Magistrate’) wherein, his provisional bail was rejected. Bibek Chaudhuri, J.*, while disposing of the present revision petition, directed petitioner to surrender before the trial court and held that no condition of directing the accused to restore peaceful conjugal life with the defacto complainant, could be imposed as a condition for anticipatory bail.
Background
Based on a police report, a case under Sections 498-A, 341, 343, 504 and 43 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) read with Sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 was registered against petitioner. Petitioner prayed for anticipatory bail before this Court and provisional bail was granted to him on 04-09-2017 with certain conditions, that he would surrender before the Magistrate within a period of four weeks along with the affidavit that he would keep his wife with dignity and care and would be released on provisional bail to its own satisfaction for a period of six months.
The impugned order was passed on 02-05-2019 by the Magistrate, wherein the provisional bail granted to petitioner by this Court 04-09-2017 was rejected and he was directed to surrender before the Magistrate and his application under Section 239 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (‘CrPC’) was rejected.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court opined that the pre-condition of granting provisional bail granted on 04-09-2017, seemed to be an attempt of reconciliation of the dispute and mediation of a charge under Section 498-A of IPC and other penal provisions. In a criminal case, at an inter locutory stage, parties could not be directed to stay together, where there was an allegation of mental and physical cruelty.
The Court held that the conditions for provisional bail were not satisfactory, and no such condition could be imposed as a condition for anticipatory bail directing the accused to restore peaceful conjugal life with the defacto complainant. The Court relied on Sushila Aggarwal v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2020) 5 SCC 1 and opined that it might grant anticipatory bail only for a fixed period. Therefore, when an anticipatory bail was granted by the higher court, it was obligatory for the trial court to grant bail to the accused on his surrender. The Court further opined that anticipatory bail could not be granted directing the parties to lead conjugal life, meaning thereby settlement of the offence under Section 498-A of IPC.
The Court noted that by way of judicial proceeding an offence under Section 498-A of IPC could be compounded, but in the statute, the offence had been made non-compoundable. The stage of compounding would come at the time of trial of the case or even at an earlier stage when both parties approached the Court that their dispute was settled amicably. The Court opined that the anticipatory bail could not be granted on the ground that the husband would take care of his wife and keep her with him for six months and after six months, if the wife did not have any complain against the husband, the order of bail would be confirmed.
The Court opined that it would not accept the conditions imposed in order dated 04-09-2017. Thus, the Court while disposing of the present revision petition directed petitioner to surrender before the trial court and on his surrender, he would be released on bail under Section 437 of CrPC. The Court affirmed Magistrate’s order of refusing petitioner for discharging him as charge sheet was already filed.
[Sanjay Kumar v. State of Bihar, 2024 SCC OnLine Pat 358, decided on: 01-02-2024]
*Judgment Authored by: Justice Bibek Chaudhuri
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Manoj Kumar, Dharmendra Kumar Singh and Shashi Shekhar Singh, Advocates
For the Respondents: Ram Sumiran Rai, Advocate
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