1 SNS IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MUMBAI APPELLATE CRIMINAL JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO.2400 OF 2010 Mustak Akbar Shaikh ...Applicant. v. The State of Maharashtra ...Respondents. Smt.P.P.Bhosale, APP for the Respondent/State. CORAM : J.H. BHATIA, J. DATED : DECEMBER 2, 2010 P.C. 1 Below office note, explanation given by the concerned Assistant and Section Officer is not satisfactory. This Court had noted that in spite of the direction given on 29.6.2010 to place the matter before the appropriate Court, matter was placed before the Court for the first time on 22nd November, 2010. No explanation is given for the delay of about five months in placing the matter before the Court particularly when it is a bail matter. There is no explanation on this point. Registrar (Judicial) shall issue warning to the concerned Assistant as well as Section Officer and take a note of the same in their service record. 2 This application is filed by the applicant Mustak Akbar Shaikh through jail. He is one of the accused in Special Case No.20 of 2 2006 registered under the MCOC Act and which is pending trial before the Special Judge. The applicant was arrested on 19.9.2006 for the offences punishable under Section 387 of the I.P.C. That offence is punishable with imprisonment which may extend to 7 years with fine. Later on, provisions of MCOC Act came to be invoked and, therefore, he could not get bail. This is the second bail application filed by the present applicant. It appears that earlier applicant had filed criminal application no.3318 of 2008 for early hearing and disposal of the case. By the order dated 21st November, 2008, this Court had directed to expedite the trial. Thereafter the applicant moved another application for bail through jail. That application no.1862 of 2009 came up for hearing on 20th July, 2009. In the order dated 20th July, 2009, it was noted by the Court "The learned APP for the State on instructions from the API Khedekar makes a statement that about 20 witnesses have already been examined and about 5/6 witnesses are yet to be examined. It is stated that the trial would be over soon. In that view of the matter there is no reason to entertain the present application. However, I hope and trust that the said court would proceed to dispose of the trial as expeditiously as possible. Application is disposed of." 3 About one year after that applicant has sent present application for bail through jail. His grievance is that after the order dated 20th July, 2009, number of witnesses were examined and still case 3 is not coming to an end. According to him, API Khedekar had made a statement that only 5/6 witnesses are yet to be examined and because of that his bail application was rejected. According to him, prosecution is not interested in getting the trial completed. In view of this, report was called from the trial Court about the status of the trial. Mr. Shinde, the learned Additional Sessions Judge, submitted his report dated 22.6.2010. As per that report 33 witnesses were already examined and the Special Public Prosecutor had informed the Court that prosecution intends to examine about 30 more witnesses. On 25th November, 2010, the learned APP made a statement that by this time 40 witnesses are already examined and about 15 more witnesses are yet to be examined. 4 From the above facts and circumstances, it appears that accused is in jail for about four and half years. His earlier bail application was rejected on 20th July, 2009 on a false statement made before this Court that only 5/6 more witnesses were to be examined. Had such a statement been not made, this Court could have considered the bail application on its own merits. Thus, it appears that prosecution misled the Court in rejecting that application. The learned APP admits that out of total 8 accused persons, 3 are already granted bail. No special reason is brought on record to refuse the bail to the applicant. As he is 4 already in jail for the last about 4 and half years and as there appears no possibility of disposal of the case within near future, in my opinion, in the interest of justice, accused should be granted bail. 5 Therefore, applicant be released on his executing PR of Rs. 50,000/- with one or more local sureties to make up the amount with condition that he shall not misuse the bail and shall attend the DCB, CID at the Commissioner’s Office, Crawford Market on every Monday between 6 to 7 p.m. and also with a condition that he shall attend the trial Court on every date without any fail. Order be communicated to the accused through jailor. (J.H. BHATIA,J.)