Chintarani Jamatia vs State Of Tripura

Heard Mr. J. Bhattacharjee, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner as well as Mr. S. Debnath, learned Addl. PP appearing for the State-respondents.

The background of the case is that the Officer-in-Charge of Kakraban police station has registered a case bearing Kakraban PS case No. 75 of 2018 under Sections 20(b)(c)/22(c) of the NDPS Act and under Section 120-B of the IPC against one Dhruba Manik Jamatia. Said Dhruba Manik Jamatia had approached this High Court with an application for granting him anticipatory bail and, accordingly, he was enlarged on anticipatory bail. It is revealed that against the said order of granting anticipatory bail, the State of Tripura has preferred a Special Leave petition before the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the Hon'ble Supreme Court has remanded the case to consider the matter afresh keeping in mind the provision of Section 37 of the NDPS Act. After remand, the court after perusal of the charge sheet has opined that there was no evidence in the instant case and again granted anticipatory bail to said Dhruba Manik Jamatia.

Mr. Ratan Datta, learned PP at the time of hearing of this instant bail application has informed this court that against the order of granting anticipatory bail, the State of Tripura has again approached the Hon'ble Supreme Court. However, no order has been passed in the meantime.

Now, coming back to the instant case, the investigating officer after completion of investigation has submitted charge sheet against 3 accused persons and it was stated that further investigation is going on against those accused persons. After elapse of ten months, the investigating officer has submitted a supplementary charge sheet wherein the name of the present accused person has been transpired as one of the offenders in connection with the case.

Mr. S. Debnath, learned Additional PP has submitted that from the very beginning the name of the accused petitioner has been revealed from the statement of the witnesses, as recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C..

If that be so, the question naturally comes as to why the name of the present accused-person was not shown in the charge-sheet as an absconder and why his name was not mentioned specifically in the former charge sheet. He might be an absconder but, the investigating officer did not take the recourse of Section 67 of the NDPS Act.

Mr. S. Debnath, has further submitted that at the time of filing the supplementary charge sheet, the investigating officer has made a prayer for declaring the present accused-person as a proclaimed offender but, Mr. Debnath could not say as to whether that petition was moved or not since in the record there is no copy of any such order passed by the court against the present accused person.

These are serious latches on the part of the investigating officer. If the name of the accused-person was transpired at the very outset of investigation then why appropriate steps were not taken against the accused-person. Onto this, the prosecution remained unanswered.

Furthermore, a co-ordinate Bench of this High Court while releasing the principal accused, namely, Dhruba Manik Jamatia on anticipatory bail had observed that the evidences, as transpired in the charge sheet, are not sufficient enough to reject his prayer for granting him anticipatory bail.

Mr. Debnath, has further submitted that the accused-person needs to be interrogated by the investigating officer.

Question again will arise that the accused-person had surrendered before the trial court on 21.09.2020 and the learned trial court vide order dated 21.09.2020 had sent him to judicial custody, surprisingly, there was no prayer on behalf of the prosecution that custodial interrogation of the present accused-person is required.

This court has also noted the submission of Mr. Debnath, that police had no knowledge about the surrender of the present accused person.

As such, the prayer of learned Additional PP, as made before this court, is repelled.

For the reasons stated above, this court is inclined to release the accused-person on bail.

Accordingly, the accused person, namely, Naithak Jamatia shall be released on bail on executing a bond of Rs. 2,00,000/- (Rupees two lakh) with two sureties of like amount to the satisfaction of learned Special Judge, Gomati Judicial District, Udaipur under the following terms and conditions:

(i) The accused shall not leave the jurisdiction of the learned Special judge, Gomati Judicial District without his prior permission;

(ii) The accused shall appear before the investigating officer once in a week;

(iii) The accused shall appear before the learned Special Judge, Gomati Judicial District on each and every date in course of trial failing which the learned Special Judge has the right to cancel the benefit of bail, as granted by this court today and shall proceed in accordance with law.

The instant bail application stands allowed in the above terms.