CRM-M-17708-2025 -1- 223 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CRM-M-17708-2025 DECIDED ON: 07.04.2025 YASHU SAINI .....PETITIONER VERSUS STATE OF HARYANA .....RESPONDENT CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL Present: Mr. Vishal Garg Narwana, Advocate and Mr. Arishdeep Mraad and Mr. Khushwant Saharan, Advocates Ms. Chetna Rao, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. B.S. Virk, Sr. DAG, Haryana. SANDEEP MOUDGIL, J (ORAL) 1. Relief sought The jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked under Section 483 B.N.S.S., for grant of regular bail to the petitioner in FIR No. 544 Dated 31.12.2022, (Annexure P-1) under Sections 148, 149, 325, and 506 IPC registered at Police Station: Sector-50, Gurugram District: Gurugram and Section 302, 201 IPC was added later on. 2. Prosecution story setup in the present case as per the version in the FIR as under:- “12. First Information Contents: TO SHO, Police Station Sec. 50 Gurugram, It is requested that I David Son of Shri Kartar Singh and Resident of Village Mainaka Police Station Hathin District Palwal. I am presently residing at Satpal Son of Shri Chander Thakran, Jal POONAM NEGI 2025.04.07 19:03 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document CRM-M-17708-2025 -2- Vihar Colony Sector-46 Gurugram. I along with my uncle's son Sonu Kumar and our brother-in-law Subhash son of Kamal Singh of village Jharsa ran a shop of utensils at Jal Vihar Colony, Sector 46, Gurugram and three of us sit at the shop. Today dated 31.12.2022 around time 02:45 PM, I was standing outside my utensils shop whereas my uncle's son Sonu Kumar was sitting inside the shop. Then suddenly 7-8 young boys came to our shop on 3-4 motorcycles and scooty who all had covered their faces with cloth and they had bent the number plate of their motorcycles and scooty due to which I could not able to note down their numbers. All of them had wooden sticks in their hands. As soon as they arrived, they kicked and punched me. Then one of the boy said that Sonu Kumar is inside the shop and they left me and started hitting my uncle's son Sonu Kumar on his head with sticks. All of them was brutally beating him. After that all of them considered my brother who was soaked/covered in blood as dead and ran away with their motorcycles and scooty. While leaving, they threatened me that if I told anyone about this fight they will kill me. The people who fought and hit my uncle's son Sonu Kumar should be searched and legal action should be taken against them.” 3. Contentions On behalf of the petitioner Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the petitioner is at parity with co-accused namely Rohit Jangra and Karan Saini, who have alredy been granted the concession of regular bail by this Court vide orders dated 29.05.2024 (Annexure P-4) and 23.07.2024 (Annexure P-5) passed in CRM-M-18170-2024 and CRM-M-32170-2024 respectively. It has been POONAM NEGI 2025.04.07 19:03 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document CRM-M-17708-2025 -3- contended by learned counsel for the petitioner that the injury which resulted into the death of the deceased has been attributed to the main accused namely Ganga Ram, who has also made a confessional statement to the effect that he gave a fatal blow. No injury has been attributed to the petitioner. On behalf of the State On the other hand, learned State counsel has produced the custody certificate of the petitioner today in Court, which is taken on record. He does not controvert the aforesaid fact and seeks dismissal of the instant petition on the ground that the petitioner is a habitual offender as he is involved in another case. 4. Analysis Be that as it may, considering the custody period i.e. 01 year, 05 months and 21 days for which the petitioner has suffered incarceration; the petitioner is at parity with co-accused namely Rohit Jangra and Karan Saini, who have already been granted the concession of regular bail by this Court vide orders dated 29.05.2024 (Annexure P-4) and 23.07.2024 (Annexure P- 5) passed in CRM-M-18170-2024 and CRM-M-32170-2024 respectively and the fact that no specific injury or role has been attributed to the present petitioner. Also considering the fact that investigation is complete, challan stands presented to Court on 01.04.2023, charges have been framed on 06.03.2024 and out of total 46 prosecution witnesses 18 witnesses have been examined so far, which is suffice for this Court to infer that the conclusion of trial will take long time for which the petitioner cannot be detained behind the bars for an indefinite period. POONAM NEGI 2025.04.07 19:03 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document CRM-M-17708-2025 -4- Reliance can be placed upon the judgment of the Apex Court rendered in “Dataram versus State of Uttar Pradesh and another”, 2018(2) R.C.R. (Criminal) 131, wherein it has been held that the grant of bail is a general rule and putting persons in jail or in prison or in correction home is an exception. Relevant paras of the said judgment is reproduced as under:- “2. A fundamental postulate of criminal jurisprudence is the presumption of innocence, meaning thereby that a person is believed to be innocent until found guilty. However, there are instances in our criminal law where a reverse onus has been placed on an accused with regard to some specific offences but that is another matter and does not detract from the fundamental postulate in respect of other offences. Yet another important facet of our criminal jurisprudence is that the grant of bail is the general rule and putting a person in jail or in a prison or in a correction home (whichever expression one may wish to use) is an exception. Unfortunately, some of these basic principles appear to have been lost sight of with the result that more and more persons are being incarcerated and for longer periods. This does not do any good to our criminal jurisprudence or to our society. 3. There is no doubt that the grant or denial of bail is entirely the discretion of the judge considering a case but even so, the exercise of judicial discretion has been circumscribed by a large number of decisions rendered by this Court and by every High Court in the country. Yet, occasionally there is a necessity to introspect whether denying bail to an accused person is the right thing to do on the facts and in the circumstances of a case. 4. While so introspecting, among the factors that need to be considered is whether the accused was arrested during investigations when that person perhaps has the best opportunity to tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses. If the investigating officer does not find it necessary to arrest an accused person during investigations, a strong case should be made out for placing that person in POONAM NEGI 2025.04.07 19:03 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document CRM-M-17708-2025 -5- judicial custody after a charge sheet is filed. Similarly, it is important to ascertain whether the accused was participating in the investigations to the satisfaction of the investigating officer and was not absconding or not appearing when required by the investigating officer. Surely, if an accused is not hiding from the investigating officer or is hiding due to some genuine and expressed fear of being victimised, it would be a factor that a judge would need to consider in an appropriate case. It is also necessary for the judge to consider whether the accused is a first-time offender or has been accused of other offences and if so, the nature of such offences and his or her general conduct. The poverty or the deemed indigent status of an accused is also an extremely important factor and even Parliament has taken notice of it by incorporating an Explanation to section 436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. An equally soft approach to incarceration has been taken by Parliament by inserting section 436A in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. 5. To put it shortly, a humane attitude is required to be adopted by a judge, while dealing with an application for remanding a suspect or an accused person to police custody or judicial custody. There are several reasons for this including maintaining the dignity of an accused person, howsoever poor that person might be, the requirements of Article 21 of the Constitution and the fact that there is enormous overcrowding in prisons, leading to social and other problems as noticed by this Court in In Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons, 2017(4) RCR (Criminal) 416: 2017(5) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.) 408 : (2017) 10 SCC 658 6. The historical background of the provision for bail has been elaborately and lucidly explained in a recent decision delivered in Nikesh Tara chand Shah v. Union of India, 2017 (13) SCALE 609 going back to the days of the Magna Carta. In that decision, reference was made to Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 565 in which it is observed that it was held way back in Nagendra v. King- POONAM NEGI 2025.04.07 19:03 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document CRM-M-17708-2025 -6- Emperor, AIR 1924 Calcutta 476 that bail is not to be withheld as a punishment. Reference was also made to Emperor v. Hutchinson, AIR 1931 Allahabad 356 wherein it was observed that grant of bail is the rule and refusal is the exception. The provision for bail is therefore age-old and the liberal interpretation to the provision for bail is almost a century old, going back to colonial days. 7. However, we should not be understood to mean that bail should be granted in every case. The grant or refusal of bail is entirely within the discretion of the judge hearing the matter and though that discretion is unfettered, it must be exercised judiciously and in a humane manner and compassionately. Also, conditions for the grant of bail ought not to be so strict as to be incapable of compliance, thereby making the grant of bail illusory.” Therefore, to elucidate further, this Court is conscious of the basic and fundamental principle of law that right to speedy trial is a part of reasonable, fair and just procedure enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This constitutional right cannot be denied to the accused as is the mandate of the Apex court in “Hussainara Khatoon and ors (IV) v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, Patna”, (1980) 1 SCC 98. Besides this, reference can be drawn upon that pre-conviction period of the under-trials should be as short as possible keeping in view the nature of accusation and the severity of punishment in case of conviction and the nature of supporting evidence, reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness or apprehension of threat to the complainant. As far as the pendency of other cases and involvement of the petitioner in other cases is concerned, reliance can be placed upon the order of this Court rendered in CRM-M-25914-2022 titled as “Baljinder Singh alias Rock vs. State of Punjab” decided on 02.03.2023, wherein, while POONAM NEGI 2025.04.07 19:03 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document CRM-M-17708-2025 -7- referring Article 21 of the Constitution of India, this Court has held that no doubt, at the time of granting bail, the criminal antecedents of the petitioner are to be looked into but at the same time it is equally true that the appreciation of evidence during the course of trial has to be looked into with reference to the evidence in that case alone and not with respect to the evidence in the other pending cases. In such eventuality, strict adherence to the rule of denial of bail on account of pendency of other cases/convictions in all probability would land the petitioner in a situation of denial of concession of bail. 5. RELIEF : In view of the discussions made hereinabove, the petitioner is hereby directed to be released on regular bail on him furnishing bail and surety bonds to the satisfaction of the trial Court/Duty Magistrate, concerned. In the afore-said terms, the present petition is hereby allowed. However, it is made clear that anything stated hereinabove shall not be construed as an expression of opinion on the merits of the case. (SANDEEP MOUDGIL) 07.04.2025 JUDGE Poonam Negi Whether speaking/reasoned Yes/No Whether reportable Yes/No POONAM NEGI 2025.04.07 19:03 I attest to the accuracy and integrity of this document