IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Cr.Misc. No.38732 of 2009 Ram Pravesh Rai, Son of Deo Narayan Rai, Resident of Village Bahoranpur, Police Station Shahpur, P.O. Gaura, District Bhojpur (Ara). -------- Petitioner Versus The State of Bihar --------- Opp. Party ----------- 2 16.11.2009 Heard learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner and counsel for State as also counsel for the informant. The petitioner and three others are facing prosecution for an offence under Section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code wherein it has been alleged that apart from death of the deceased at the spot, three other persons had also sustained fire-arm injury in the occurrence in question. It is said that all the four persons including the petitioner were armed with gun/rifle and when the dispute took place on any issue in course of marriage, they had opened fire in which fire-arm injury was sustained by three of them and the fourth person was killed at the spot. Learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner would submit that the specific allegation of gunning down the deceased is against Ramashish Rai and there is 2 no specific allegation of overt act against the petitioner and other accused persons. He would further draw the attention of this Court by producing a photocopy of the case diary and referring its paragraphs to contend that the firing was resorted by both sides and therefore, there can be no premeditated and/or concerted effort on the part of the petitioner, the father of the groom, to do away with the life of any person so as to implicate him for an offence under Section 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code. Learned counsel for the informant, on the other hand, would submit that true it is that some of the witnesses in the case diary have referred to also firing by the family members of the informant but, then, the same was more or less in his self defence because by that time, three persons on the side of the informant had already sustained gun-shot injury. He would further submit that there is no injury on the side of the petitioner and in fact, the madness on the part of the petitioner and his associates gets reflected when it is found that they were totally in 3 drunken state and had resorted to causing fire-arm injuries on a very petty issue in which life of four persons was put on stake out of which one of them died at the spot. Learned counsel for the petitioner in reply would submit that there is no injury report available in the case diary which is with him and therefore, it would be better that this Court would call for and peruse the entire case diary. In the opinion of this Court, on the materials available on record and the part of the case diary produced by the learned counsel for the petitioner himself as also on reading the impugned order, this much is clear that the house of marriage had become a battle field primarily on account of the petitioner becoming over sensitive on a trivial reason. One can understand about the over enthusiasm or resorting to firing by other accused persons being the members of a barat party but then the petitioner was the most responsible person of his side whose son was to be wedded and if he is said to have been consistently named by all the witnesses to have resorted to 4 firing this Court, irrespective of the fact that the fatal gun-shot injury was caused by the co-accused Ramashish Rai, would not find the petitioner entitled for bail for the present. While taking this view, this Court is also conscious of the fact that the co-accused Surendra Tiwary who was not even named in the First Information Report but was ultimately found to be also a person involved in the shooting was refused bail by this Court by an order dated 9.9.2009 in Cr. Misc. No. 32071 of 2009. That being so, no useful purpose would now be served by calling for the case diary when there are unimpeachable materials as discussed above which even otherwise are sufficient to show the complicity of the petitioner in the offence alleged. Accordingly, the prayer for bail of the petitioner, namely, Ram Pravesh Rai is rejected for the present. He may, however, renew his prayer for bail after completing nine months of his judicial custody. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)