Hitesh Verma vs State of Jharkhand and Another

K.G. Balakrishnan and P.P. Naolekar, JJ.—Leave granted.

The Appellant herein, moved an application for bail before the High Court of Jharkhand and at that point of time the police had filed a final report u/s 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure alleging that offences under Sections 304A and 498A were made out and the High Court declined to grant bail and in that impugned order passed by the High Court, the following observation was made in the last paragraph :

From the materials which have come on record, it clearly indicates that torture was being committed and this is not a case u/s 304A, I.P.C. ; rather it is a case u/s 302, I.P.C. In that view of the matter, I am not inclined to enlarge the Petitioner on bail and his prayer for bail is rejected.

The Appellant has filed this appeal against the observations of the High Court and for granting bail to him.

We have heard the learned senior counsel for the Appellant and the learned senior counsel for the de facto complainant and also the counsel appearing for the State.

The learned senior counsel for the Appellant contended that the learned single Judge should not have made such observations in the impugned order and the Appellant is seriously prejudiced by such observation. The learned Counsel further pointed out that in view of these observations, the Magistrate has now committed the matter to the Sessions Court treating it as a case exclusively triable by a Court of Session. We are of the view that in an order for rejecting the bail application, the High Court should not have made such passing observation and the matter should have been left to the appropriate court to take any decision on the materials produced before it. If the superior courts make any such observation the subordinate courts would be unduly swayed by such observation and may implicitly take certain decision without there being any proper application of mind.

Hence, we delete the observations made in the last portion of the impugned order and as the matter is now pending before the Sessions Court, we give a further direction to the Sessions Court that the Sessions Court may frame charge in this case, having regard to all the relevant materials produced before it.

As regards bail, the Appellant would be at liberty to approach the High Court by way of a fresh application.

The appeal is disposed of accordingly.