New Delhi: The Supreme Court has cancelled the anticipatory bail of three accused, in a case in which it was alleged that they killed a 20-year-old man by setting him ablaze, saying “High court has erred in granting the relief cryptically and mechanically without considering the materials available on record including the chargesheet….”.
A bench comprising justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B Varale set aside the Patna High Court order granting anticipatory bail to Ratan Devnath, Lalita Devi, and Rina Devi, in July 2023.
“The High Court has erred in granting the relief cryptically and mechanically without considering the materials available on record, including the chargesheet, which stated that the case has been found true against all the accused persons of such a heinous offence of murder by pouring kerosene oil and setting the deceased on fire”, said the bench.
The accused had set ablaze the deceased by pouring kerosene, over his alleged love affair with a girl of their family. The bench said there are specific averments in the FIR against all the accused persons that all of them had set the deceased on fire to kill him. The apex court wondered at the decision of the High Court to grant anticipatory bail in the present case.
“We fail to understand as to how the High Court had granted relief of anticipatory bail to the respondents in an offence under Section 302 of the IPC”, said the bench, in a judgment delivered on Friday. The apex court allowed an appeal by Shambhu Debnath, who was represented by advocate Namit Saxena, the complainant against the High Court’s order.
Citing Sushila Aggarwal vs State (NCT of Delhi) (2020), the bench said the court had laid down the factors, which are supposed to be considered while granting anticipatory bail: nature and gravity of the offences, the role attributed to the applicant, and the facts of the case.
The bench said whether to grant or not is a matter of discretion; equally whether and if so, what kind of special conditions are to be imposed (or not imposed) are dependent on facts of the case, and subject to the discretion of the court.
During the hearing, the bench issued non-bailable warrants, as the accused failed to appear before the court even after the service. “Respondents nos. 2 to 4 are directed to surrender before the trial court within four weeks from today and they are granted liberty to file an application for regular bail, which if filed would be considered as per law on its own merits uninfluenced by any observations made in this judgment”, said the bench.
On January 13, 2023, an FIR was registered at Motihari Mufasil police station by Debnath, claiming he heard the ruckus outside the house and saw that the body of his 20-year-old nephew, Mukesh Kumar, was ablaze. Debnath asked Kumar about the incident. Kumar said that Sindhu Devnath, Sanjit Devnath, Ratan Devnath (respondent no. 2 herein), Lalita Devi (respondent no. 3 herein), Sunil Devnath and Rina Devi (respondent no. 4 herein) had caught hold of him, whereby Sindhu Devnath told him that the appellant’s nephew loved his daughter and all of them started beating and abusing him.
Furthermore, it was stated that all of the accused persons, to kill, poured kerosene oil over the appellant’s nephew and set his body on fire. Kumar succumbed to the burn injuries on January 17, 2023.
The trial court declined to grant anticipatory bail in March 2023. The accused moved to the High Court, which granted them anticipatory bail.
The police submitted a chargesheet against one of the accused persons namely Sindhu Devnath, wherein it was also categorically mentioned that from the investigation so far, the case has been found true against all the accused persons named in the FIR and the subsidiary investigation of the case was still pending then.
