Court No. - 52
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 15749 of 2017 Applicant :- Umesh Chaudhary Opposite Party :- State Of U.P.
Counsel for Applicant :- Pankaj Sharma,Dr. C.P. Upadhyay Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.,Durga Singh
Hon'ble Rajul Bhargava,J.
Heard Dr. C.P. Upadhyay and Sri Pankaj Sharma, learned counsel for the applicant, Sri Durga Singh, learned counsel for the first informant and the learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the record.
The present bail application has been filed by the applicant-Umesh Chaudhary in Case Crime No.1167 of 2015, under Section 302 I.P.C., Police Station Highway, District-Mathura with the prayer to enlarge him on bail.
The submission of the learned counsel for the applicant is that according to the prosecution the incident is stated to have taken place on 19.12.2015 at 6. p.m. It is stated that when informant's son, Manoj Kumar was going on motorcycle, he was waylaid by the applicant, Umesh Chaudhary and started hurling abuses on him. On being objected by the deceased, Manoj Kumar, the applicant is stated to have fired by Katta on the deceased and fled away. The informant, thereafter with the help of villagers, took him to the hospital whereby doctors declared him dead. Post mortem was conducted on the dead body of the deceased in which two firearm wounds of entry and two wounds of exit were noted. The first informant after about 16 days of the incident submitted an application to the concerned police station stating that besides applicant, Umesh Chaudhary, two other accused were also involved in the incident and first shot was fired by the applicant, Umesh Chaudhary and thereafter co-accused, Bobby who was not named in the F.I.R. had fired on the deceased. First informant in his second statement recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C. modulated the version and also introduced name of some of the eye-witnesses who had disclosed about the incident to him. It is argued that in the F.I.R. no witness has been cited by the first informant and he claims himself to be eye-witness of the incident. Subsequent modulation and improvement had been made only with a view to make prosecution version consistent with the medical evidence as two firearm wounds of entry and two firearm wounds of exit were noted in the post mortem report which indicates that no body had witnessed the incident and it was a blind murder under the cover of darkness by some unknown miscreant. The applicant is in jail since 18.8.2016. He has no previous criminal history. However, after his involvement in the instant case, he has been shown to be involved in three other cases. One case is under Section 174-A I.P.C., second is under Section 3/25 of Arms Act which is related to recovery of weapon allegedly used by the applicant in the present incident and third one is under Section 2/3 of Gangsters Act. It is pointed out that co-accused, Bobby alias Rohit to whom first informant and other witnesses have assigned role of firing, has been granted bail by another Bench of this Court in Criminal Misc. Bail Application No.8296 of 2017 on 21.3.2017, therefore, the applicant also deserves to be released on bail.
Per contra, learned AGA as well as learned counsel for the first informant vehemently opposed the prayer for grant of bail to the applicant and submitted that consistent role has been attributed to the applicant in the F.I.R. and subsequent statement of the first informant and witnesses recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C. However, they did not dispute that an application was moved by the first informant after 16 days of the incident involving two more accused.
Considering the facts and circumstances of the case as also the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the parties, without expressing any opinion on merits of the case, I am of the view that the applicant is entitled to be released on bail.
Let applicant-Umesh Chaudhary be released on bail in the aforesaid case crime number on his furnishing a personal bond and two reliable sureties of the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned subject to following conditions that:-
1. The applicant shall not tamper with the prosecution evidence;
2. The applicant shall not pressurize the prosecution witnesses;
3. The applicant shall appear on the date fixed by the trial court.
In case of default of any of the conditions enumerated above, the courts below shall be at liberty to cancel bail of the applicant.
Order Date :- 24.4.2018 MN/-