IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Cr.Misc. No.30152 of 2009 KASHI SINGH Son of Late Nandkishore Rai, Resident of Village-Iswarpura, P.S. Shahpur, District-Bhojpur. Versus STATE OF BIHAR ----------- 4 11/11/2009 Heard counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the State. The petitioner is an accused for the offence under sections 302/34 of the Indian Penal Code and section 27 of the Arms Act. Counsel for the petitioner would submit that once the petitioner is not named in the First Information Report which had contained names of four persons duly armed, it must be presumed that the statement under section 164 of the Cr.P.C. involving name of the petitioner is an embellishment in the prosecution story. He would further submit that a co-accused Raghunath Singh, who also was not named in the First Information Report, has already been enlarged on bail by this Court by order dated 20.10.2008 in Cr. Misc. No.35480 of 2008. This Court would find that the Informant is not an eye witness and in fact he claims to have only known about the occurrence on hearing sound of firing of gun. He then claims that four persons named in the F.I.R. had been running away and therefore had believed that those four persons were the assailants of the deceased. Subsequently, the police in course of investigation could find from five witnesses that they were eye witnesses and one of them had been 2 also examined in course of investigation under section 164 of the Cr.P.C. and has given graphic details wherein presence of those four persons named in the F.I.R have not been ruled out but then it is stated that the petitioner was the person who was hired for gunning down the deceased. Such story of improvement in the prosecution version by other witnesses may or may not be proved, but when the petitioner is an accused in other eight criminal cases it would be difficult for this Court to believe that the person like the petitioner will be named simply by the villagers and the independent witnesses unless they had seen the occurrence. That apart, this Court would find that the case of co-accused Raghunath Singh is distinguishable, inasmuch as, there was no allegation against him even in the statement under section 164 of the Cr.P.C. As allegation against the petitioner is for gunning down the deceased, this Court is not inclined to grant bail to the petitioner. Accordingly, prayer for bail of the petitioner is rejected. In view of the fact that charges against the petitioner have already been framed and the trial is going on, this Court would direct the trial court to ensure that trial of the petitioner is taken up and concluded within a period of one year from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. Abhay Kumar (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)