Madhya Pradesh High Court: In an application filed for cancellation of anticipatory bail granted to accused persons, who were manufacturing fake products using applicant’s trade mark and copyrights, the Single Judge Bench of Rajesh Kumar Gupta, J., held that the Sessions Court granted bail on the presumption that the all the offences were punishable maximum upto the imprisonment of 7 years and therefore, wrongly applied the guidelines as laid down by the Supreme Court in Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar, (2014) 8 SCC 273; application was allowed and impugned orders were quashed.
Background
Applicant, proprietor of trade mark “Bhatia Masale”, filed a complaint against Respondents 2 to 5, for selling fake products bearing his trade mark and copyrights “Bhatia Masale”.
An FIR was registered for offence punishable under Sections 420, Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), and Section 63, Copyright Act, 1957. During investigation, the offence was admitted and the material used for manufacturing fake products were seized. The charge-sheet was filed enhancing the offence under Sections 120-B, 201 IPC and Sections 102, 103 and 104, Trade Marks Act, 1999.
At the time of filing of the charge-sheet, the accused persons filed a bail application. Accordingly, JMFC Court released them on bail bonds, considering that all the offences were punishable with imprisonment up to 7 years. Thereafter, the JMFC Court, after perusing the charge-sheet, took cognizance of additional offences under Sections 467, 468, 469, 470, 471 and 473 IPC. The JMFC Court also cancelled the bail bonds, since they were not obtained for additional offences under aforesaid sections. The JMFC Court sent the matter to the Sessions Court for the committal of the case, since the offences under Sections 467, 468, 471 and 473 were exclusively triable by the Sessions Court.
The accused persons filed applications for anticipatory bail before the Sessions Court, for additional offences, and the same were allowed. The Sessions Court relied on the Supreme Court judgment in Arnesh Kumar (supra), while observing that offences are punishable up to the imprisonment of 7 years. However, offences under Sections 467, 468, 469, 470, 471 and 473 IPC were ignored without any reasoning.
Aggrieved, the applicant filed the instant application for cancellation of the anticipatory bail to the private Respondents 2 to 5.
Analysis and Decision
At the outset, the Court referred the judgment of the Supreme Court in Pradeep Ram v. State of Jharkhand, (2019) 17 SCC 326. Wherein it was held that, where an accused has been granted bail, the investigating authority cannot arrest the accused solely on account of the addition of new offence(s). Any such arrest requires prior permission from the Court that granted bail.
The Court then distinguished the facts and circumstances of the present case and noted that the JMFC Court had already taken cognizance of additional offences, punishable with life imprisonment, prior to the passing of impugned orders.
The Court held that the Sessions Court undoubtedly had jurisdiction to grant the bail to the accused persons. However, the Sessions Court erred in grating the bail in light of the Arnesh Kumar (supra), while ignoring additional offences punishable with imprisonment more than 7 years. The grant of bail on the presumption that the all the offences are punishable maximum upto the imprisonment of 7 years led to the gross error by the Sessions Court.
Hence, the grant of anticipatory bail was untenable in law.
The Court, hence, allowed the instant application by quashing impugned orders and directed accused-respondents to approach the trial court for regular bail while directing the trial court to consider and decide such applications independently, without being influenced by any observations contained in this order.
[Rajkumar Bhatia v. State of M.P., 2025 SCC OnLine MP 10641, order dated 17-12-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the applicant: Karan Virwani, Advocate
For the Respondent 1: Jyoti Gautam, PL for the State
For the Respondent 2: Prashant Sharma, Advocate
For the Respondent 3 and 4: Girija Shankar Sharma, Advocate
For the Respondent 5: N/A
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