Punjab & Haryana HC denies bail to accused who allegedly caused gun-shot injury to deceased with his own rifle

Read Order: Vikas v. State of Haryana

Monika Rahar

Chandigarh, January 12, 2022: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that the mere factum of recording of supplementary statements of the complainant during the investigation would not come to the aid of the petitioner-accused for seeking the relief of bail as the complainant had already nominated the petitioner as one of the accused in the case of murder of his son, even in his first version qua the alleged occurrence which led to the registration of the said FIR. 

The bench of Justice Meenakshi I. Mehta further said,“Even otherwise, this aspect (recording of supplementary statements) can and shall be looked into and adjudicated upon by the trial Court at the appropriate stage after appreciating and evaluating the evidence that may be led on the record during the course of the trial.”

In the instant case, it was alleged by the complainant that his son was murdered by the family members of a girl who was in contact with his deceased son. Initially, on completion of the investigation, the girl was sent to face trial for committing the offence under Section 302 of IPC whereas the petitioner (one of the members of the girl’s family) was found to be involved in the offences under Section 216 IPC and Sections 27 and 30 of the Arms Act.

However, the ADGP (Crime), Panchkula, transferred the investigation of the case to the State Crime Branch, Gurugram later on and the supplementary statements of the complainant were recorded and the petitioner, as well as his co-accused, joined in the investigation.

Thereafter, the supplementary Challan was presented against them with the allegations that they were found to have hatched a conspiracy to kill the above-named son of the complainant. Status-report was already filed on behalf of the respondent-State by way of the affidavit of the Deputy Superintendent of Police, City Sonipat.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that the petitioner was falsely implicated in the present case. He further submitted that the investigation of the case was conducted by three different agencies and the complainant also made supplementary statements. Further, he submitted that the petitioner was initially not found to be involved in the offence under Section 302 IPC and that he was behind the bars since  2019 and thus deserved to be released. 

Per contra, State counsel argued that the fire-arm injury suffered by the deceased was caused by the licensed rifle belonging to the petitioner. It was also argued that the investigating agencies were changed to bring the matter to a logical end. 

Addressing the petitioner’s argument of not being tried for Section 302 IPC initially, the Court observed that though the petitioner was, initially, found to be involved in the commission of the offences under Section 216 IPC and Sections 27 and 30 of the Arms Act but a bare perusal of the FIR revealed that the complainant specifically named him as one of the assailants who had killed his son. 

Further, about the change of investigating The Court opined that the investigation of the case was entrusted to State Crime Branch, Gurugram and a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted in response to a petition filed by the complainant which sought transfer of investigation to some independent agency owing to the conduct of the investigation in an unfair manner by the Police agencies. 

The Court also noted that during the investigation by these agencies, the petitioner and his above-said co-accused were also found to be involved in the commission of the offence under Section 302 IPC besides other offences as mentioned in the supplementary Challan submitted against them.

As regards the petitioner’s incarceration, the Court opined that it would not prove to be a factor in favour of the petitioner because it was categorically said in the status report that the postmortem report and ballistic expert’s report and other available evidence established that the victim died a homicidal death due to the gun-shot injury with the rifle belonging to the petitioner which was recovered at his instance.

Thus keeping in view the gravity of the offence, bail was not granted.