Aji Philip vs State Of Kerala

K.Haripal, J

1.Petitioner is the 1st accused in Crime No. 569 of 2021 of Adoor police station, which was registered alleging offence punishable under Section 379 read with Section 34 of the IPC and Section 3(1) of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984.

The allegation is that the accused persons, four in number, in furtherance of their common intention committed large scale mischief by stealing cables which were installed for drawing BSNL line within Parakkode Exchange limits causing loss of Rs.40 lakhs to the BSNL. All other accused persons, that is accused Nos. 2 to 4 have already been arrested and later released on bail. The petitioner was arrested on 07.09.2021.

I heard the learned counsel on both sides and also Adv. Sri. Mathew. K. Philip, on behalf of the Standing Counsel for the BSNL.

While granting bail to accused Nos. 2 and 4 vide Annexure-3 order, this Court had noticed that BSNL had suffered a loss of Rs.2,52,000/- and therefore that was equally divisible among all accused persons; as a pre-condition for granting bail to those persons, they were directed to deposit an amount of Rs.63,000/- each before the jurisdictional court.

After reviewing the updates in investigation, it is evident that investigation has progressed considerably and continuous detention of the petitioner is not necessary.

Therefore, the petitioner shall be released on bail on the following conditions:-

i) Petitioner shall execute a bond for Rs.50,000/-(Rupees Fifty Thousand only) with two solvent sureties each for the like sum to the satisfaction of the jurisdictional court;

(ii) Petitioner shall make deposit of Rs.63,000/- (Rupees sixty three thousand only) before the jurisdictional court within two weeks from the date of release;

iii) He shall not try to contact or influence the witnesses or tamper with the evidence;

iv) He shall not leave the country without permission of the jurisdictional court;

v) He shall not involve in any crime during the period on bail; vi) He shall appear before the Investigating Officer/trial court as and when required;

vii) The petitioner shall strictly abide the various guidelines issued by the State and Central Governments with respect to keeping of social distancing in the wake of Covid 19 pandemic;

viii) If any of the above conditions are violated by the petitioner, the jurisdictional court will be a liberty to cancel the bail, in accordance with law.

Bail Application is allowed as above.