Pasupula Srinivasulu and others vs State of Andhra Pradesh

The petitioners are accused Nos.1, 3 and 5 in Crime No.84 of 1998. 1st petitioner is working as a Teacher in Government School. Petitioners 2 and 3 are doing some business. A case came to be registered against five accused in Crime No.84 of 1998. The petitioner No.1 was married to one person by name Jhansi. Marriage took place in the year 1997 and according to the petitioners she lived with her husband only for a period of one month and then left to her parents house at Nalgonda. Complaint was filed on 23rd May, 1998 in which it was stated that Smt. Jhansi poured kerosene on her body on 22nd May, 1998 and set fire to herself at the house of her father. Eventually she died. Certain allegations were levelled against the present petitioners regarding harassment and demand of dowry. The case is under investigation.

The petitioners moved an application for grant of bail in anticipation of arrest before this Court being Crl. P. No.2589 of 1998. This Court disposed of the petition by an order dated 18-6-1998. The following order was passed by this Court :

"Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, I consider it appropriate to direct the release of Petitioner No.2(A2) and Petitioner No.4(A4) on bail in the event of their arrest in connection with Crime No.84 of 1998 of Police Station, Nalgonda subject to the condition of each one of them executing a personal bond for a sum of Rs.5,000/- with two sureties each for a likesum to the satisfaction of the SHO of the said Police Station. The petitioners shall be present themselves before the Investigating Officer as and when their presence is required by the Investigating Officer connection with the investigation of the crime. I do not find any merit whatsoever as far as the application filed by the petitioner Nos. 1, 3 and 5 is concerned and the same is accordingly dismissed.''''

After this bail application was rejected as far as three of the accused are concerned, they filed another bail application being Crl. P. No.2914 of 1998 which was disposed of by this Court by an order dated 17-7-1998. The order is reproduced below :

"I do not find any merit whatsoever in the application to direct the petitioner to be released on bail in the event of his arrest. As the matter is stated to be under investigation it would not be appropriate to interfere at this stage and direct the release of the petitioner in the event of his arrest.

Petition fails and is accordingly dismissed."

It may not be out of place to mention that, before initiating these successive applications the petitioners have moved the learned Sessions Judge who also dismissed the application.

Now, this application is third in the series on the same grounds which were taken in the earlier petitions. In this application an added ground has been taken that, Criminal Petition No.2589 of 1998 has been filed before this Hon''ble Court and the Court while granting bail in respect of accused Nos.2 and 4 has given no specific reasons for rejection of anticipatory bail to the petitioners. No mention has been made by the petitioners in the present application as to the second bail application Crl. P. No.2914 of 1998 which has already been rejected by this Court.

The petition could be dismissed in the light of the above facts without further discussion, but since the matter was argued in detail with respect to the maintainability of this application therefore some discussion is needed.

As has been pointed out earlier, this is a third successive application and the learned Counsel for the petitioner has not been able to show that, from the date of rejection of the earlier application till date there has been any substantial change in the feet situation, but he states that since the Court earlier did not give any reason therefore this Court is not precluded from deciding the case on merits. While disposing of the first bail application this Court found that there was no merit whatsoever in the application filed on behalf of petitioners 1, 3 and 5, at the second instance the Court found that bail could not be granted in view of the fact that the matter was under investigation and Court thought it inappropriate to interfere at the stage of investigation and direct the release of the petitioners in the event of their arrest. Therefore, it is abundantly clear that the petitioners are not correct in saying that the Court dismissed the application without giving the reasons. Even if it was so that Court had dismissed applications without giving reasons, would that justify filing of another bail application. In my view, no such bail application could be moved because this is a Court of co-ordinate jurisdiction where ''A'' Judge passes an order ''B'' Judge passes other order, the order passed by the High Court is an order of High Court and judicial discipline demands that one Bench will not upset the order of another Bench. This Court has no power whatsoever to scrutinise the orders passed by a co-ordinate Bench. Therefore, even if the petitioners were correct in saying that the order was not reasoned order, even then, this Court would not be in a position to entertain third successive bail application on the same grounds which were agitated earlier before this Court. If the petitioners were aggrieved by the successive orders passed by this Court the remedy was somewhere else and not again before this Court. Such a practice of moving successive applications has been deprecated by the Supreme Court. One judgment is specific in this aspect, i.e., State of Maharashtra Vs. Captain Buddhikota Subha Rao, . In the judgment (supra) the Supreme Court found :

"Once that application was rejected there was no question of granting a similar prayer. That is virtually overruling the earlier decision without there being a change in the fact-situation. And, when we speak of change, we mean a substantial one which has a direct impact on the earlier decision and not merely cosmetic changes which are of little or no consequence. Between the two orders there was a gap of only two days and it is nobody''s case that during these two days drastic changes had taken place necessitating the release of the respondent on bail. Judicial discipline, propriety and comity demanded that the impugned order should not have been passed reversing all earlier orders including the one rendered by Puranik, J. Only a couple of days before, in the absence of any substantial change in the fact-situation. In such cases it is necessary to act with restraint and circumspection so that the process of the Court is not abused by a litigant and an impression does not gain ground that the litigant has either successfully avoided one Judge or selected another to secure an order which had hitherto eluded him. In such a situation the proper course, we think, is to direct that the matter be placed before the same learned Judge who disposed of the earlier applications. Such a practice or convention would prevent abuse of the process of Court inasmuch as it will prevent an impression being created that a litigant is avoiding or selecting a Court to secure an order to his liking. Such a practice would also discourage the filing of successive bail applications without change of circumstances. Such a practice if adopted would be conducive to judicial discipline and would also save the Court''s time as a Judge familiar with the facts would be able to dispose of the subsequent application with despatch. It will also result in consistency. In this view that we take we are fortified by the observations of this Court in paragraph 5 of the judgment in Shahzad Hasan Khan Vs. Ishtiaq Hasan Khan and Another, . For the above reasons we are of the view that there was no justification for passing the impugned order in the absence of a substantial change in the fact-situation. That is what prompted Shelly, J., to describe the impugned order as ''a bit out of the ordinary''. Judicial restraint demands that we say no more."

The learned Public Prosecutor has submitted that investigation is going on. Since the petitioners are absconding and two accused who had been granted bail by this Court are also not cooperating with the investigation and violating the orders of this Court, therefore the investigation could not be completed. Even the learned Counsel for the petitioners has conceded that there is no change in the fact situation from the date the earlier bail application was rejected.

For the foregoing reasons I hold that, once a bail application is rejected another bail application can only be made when there is change of fact-situation, unless such a change is shown second bail application would not lie.

For the reasons given above, I find that this application is not at all maintainable and is rejected as such.