Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973: s.438 – Anticipatory bail – Brother of the victim-deceased lodged an FIR against the appellant for offence alleged to have taken place in 1991 – FIR was lodged for offence punishable under ss.364, 201, 344, 219 and 120-B IPC and subsequently the offence punishable under s.302 IPC was added on the statements of two of the co-accused who were allowed to become approver – Appellant applied for anticipatory bail for offence under s.302 IPC – Sessions Judge dismissed the application – High Court also dismissed the bail application filed before it – In the instant appeal, plea of appellant was that the present FIR was not maintainable as being second FIR on the same set of facts and having been registered after delay of 29 years of alleged incident – It was submitted that earlier attempt to falsely implicate appellant failed and similar FIR for the very incident in question with similar allegations was quashed by Supreme Court in the case of *Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar – It was further submitted that the informant had heavily relied upon the liberty that was reserved in favour of father of the deceased to file fresh proceedings – However during his lifetime, father of the deceased did not initiate any fresh proceedings and the present FIR was filed after nine years of judgment in case of *Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar and 29 years after the incident that too by the brother of the deceased – Held: Considering the fact that the impugned FIR was lodged by the brother of the deceased after a period of almost 29 years from the date of incident and after a period of 9 years from the date of decision in the case of *Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar and nothing was on record that in between he had taken any steps to initiate criminal proceedings and/or lodged an FIR, a case is made out by the appellant for grant of anticipatory bail – Whether the fresh/present proceedings are permissible in law are yet to be considered in the pending proceedings for quashing the impugned FIR – In view of status of the appellant that he retired in 2018 as Director General of Police, Punjab after 30 years of service and the alleged incident was of the year 1991 and even in the present FIR initially there was no allegation for the offence under s.302 IPC and the allegations were only for the offences under ss.364, 201, 344, 330, 219 and 120-B of the IPC, for which there was an order of anticipatory bail in favour of the appellant and subsequently the offence under s.302 IPC was added on the basis of the statements of approvers only, the appellant has made out a case for anticipatory bail.
Allowing the appeal, the Court
HELD: 1. Informant and the State are relying upon the observations made by this Court in the case of *Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar and the liberty reserved in para 117 to the applicant who earlier filed the petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. (father of the deceased) to take recourse to fresh proceedings, if permissible in law. However, the said liberty was as such in favour of the father of the deceased who in the earlier round of litigation before the High Court filed the petitions under Section 482 Cr.P.C. This Court reserved the liberty in favour of the father of the deceased to take recourse to fresh proceedings by specifically observing that if permissible in law. The father of the deceased died in the year 2014. Till 2014, the father of the deceased did not initiate any fresh proceedings. After a period of 9 years from the date of decision of this Court in the case of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, all of a sudden, now the informant – brother of the deceased woke up and initiated the present criminal proceedings. Whether the fresh/present proceedings are permissible in law are yet to be considered by this Court in the pending proceedings for quashing the impugned FIR. [Para 8][819-F-H; 820-A-B]
2. Looking to the status of the appellant that he has retired in the year 2018 as Director General of Police, Punjab after 30 years of service and the alleged incident was of the year 1991 and even in the present FIR initially there was no allegation for the offence under Section 302 IPC and the allegations were only for the offences under Sections 364, 201, 344, 330, 219 and 120-B of the IPC, for which there was an order of anticipatory bail in favour of the appellant and subsequently the offence under Section 302 IPC was added on the basis of the statements of approvers only, the appellant has made out a case for anticipatory bail. [Para 9] [820-C-D]
*State of Punjab v. Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar (2011)
14 SCC 770: [2011] 15 SCR 540; Pradeep Ram v. State of Jharkhand 2019 (9) SCALE 120; Sushila Aggarwal v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2020) 5 SCC 1 – referred to.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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