Punjab and Haryana High Court: In the petition filed by Indian Army Sepoy seeking regular bail in the FIR registered under Sections 3,4,5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 and Section 124-A of the Penal Code, 1860 for the offence of leaking sensitive secret information to Pakistan, Gurvinder Singh Gill*, J., ordered to release the petitioner on regular bail on his furnishing of bail bonds/surety bonds to the satisfaction of the Trial Court/the Chief Judicial Magistrate/the Duty Magistrate concerned.
In an instant case, the police received a secret information on 14-10-2021 that, the petitioner serving Indian Army as a Sepoy had been leaking sensitive secret information to Pakistan in lieu of illegal gratification.
A raid was conducted at his house in Ambala, and he was apprehended. It was further the case of prosecution that two mobile phones were recovered from the petitioner. It was further the case of the prosecution that during the course of investigation it transpired that illegal gratification had been passed on to petitioner’s father and had been credited in his bank account.
The Court after perusal of facts and contentions noted that, through scrutinizing the call-details from mobile phone seized in raid nothing incriminating was found, but the data recovered from the mobile phones, which was to the tune of 48GB, was yet to be scrutinized. The Court had directed the in-charge, Cyber Cell, to take necessary steps in the regard of examining the recovered data and to submit his report on or before the next date of hearing.
The Court then directed the State to ensure that the said report was placed before this Court on or before the next date of hearing. After perusal of the compliance report, the Court noted that apart from one WhatsApp text message, which cannot be said to be incriminating, nothing else could be pointed out which could be said to connect the petitioner with the allegations made in the FIR. The petitioner had been behind bars for a substantial period of more than 2½ years.
The Court then accepted the petition and ordered to release the petitioner on regular bail on his furnishing bail bonds/surety bonds to the satisfaction of Trial Court/Chief Judicial Magistrate/Duty Magistrate concerned.
The Court that said that any observation made above should not be considered as merit. The State was at liberty to investigate the matter with regard to remaining co-accused.
[Rohit Kumar v. State of Haryana, 2024 SCC OnLine P&H 7551, decided on 02-07-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Petitioner: Keshav Pratap Singh, Tarun Hooda and Vishal Singh, Advocates.
For Respondent: Munish Sharma, DAG, Haryana
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