HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION Dated Nainital the 10th March, 2011 1st Bail Application No. 17 of 2011 Order on the bail application of the accused. Om Prakash S/o Sri Ganga Ram ……. Applicant Versus State of Uttarakhand …….. Opposite Party In F.I.R. No. 41 of 2010 U/S 420, 477A, 506 I.P.C. & 65 Information and Technology Act Police Station Mallital District Nainital Hon’ble Tarun Agarwala, J. Heard Shri Navnish Negi, the learned counsel for the applicant Shri S.S. Adhikari, the learned A.G.A. for the State. One Suresh Gupta was murdered on 19th August, 1989. In the criminal trial, four brothers were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, namely, Dhiru @ Dhir Singh, Suresh, Shyamun and Ramu. All the four preferred a criminal appeal before the Allahabad High Court which was numbered as Appeal No. 1213 of 1991. Upon the creation of Uttarakhand, the appeal was transferred to this Court where it was re-numbered as Appeal No. 752 of 2011. From 1991, the appeal remained pending and could not be heard and, during the pendency of the appeal, the four convicted persons were enlarged on bail. The four accused persons were residents of Tanakpur and the deceased was also a resident of Tanakpur. The widow of the deceased used to see these four persons on the street and used to get perturbed. The widow tried to find out about the status of her appeal and, eventually, came to know that the file of the criminal appeal is missing in the High Court. A complaint to that effect was lodged before the Registrar of this Court. On the basis of the complaint, an inquiry was made. The applicant who is a Review Officer in the High Court apparently went to Tanakpur and accosted the widow of the deceased threatening her with dire consequences and intimidating her that she would face consequences in the event she pursued with her complaint. 2 The widow came to the High Court and lodged a complaint before the Registrar. The Registrar called this employee in his chamber where he was identified by the widow of the deceased as the same person who had threatened her at Tanakpur. On the basis of the preliminary inquiry conducted by the High Court, the F.I.R. was lodged. Upon investigation, it was found that the applicant had a role to play in the destruction of the criminal appeal from the High Court. Not only the file was destroyed, the applicant ensured that the records relating to the entries of the criminal appeal was also mutilated, tampered or destroyed. Not only this, the computer was also hacked and the entry of the record of the criminal appeal was also deleted from the computer’s server. Upon investigation, it was found that the applicant also belonged to Tanakpur and was in cahoots with the four accused. Evidence was gathered and statements were recorded and it was found that the applicant in a drunken state had admitted to the destruction of the criminal appeal from the High Court upon taking a sum of Rs.3 lacs. Statement of other witnesses have corroborated that the widow of the deceased was also threatened by the applicant. In the light of these facts which has now come in the investigation, the learned counsel for the applicant submitted that the applicant is in jail for the past two months and that he has been falsely implicated in the case. The F.I.R. does not name the applicant and that the High Court knew that the file was missing since 2007 but did nothing and only lodged the F.I.R. in October, 2010, the delay which could not be explained properly and, consequently, on this short ground the applicant is entitled to be enlarged on bail at this stage. Having heard the learned counsel for the applicant and the learned A.G.A. for the State, the Court finds that sufficient incriminating evidence has already come up which prima-facie implicates the applicant in the heinous crime that has been committed, namely, destruction of the record of the High Court for monetary gains. The investigation is still going on and there could be other persons also involved in this crime. In the light of the fact that the 3 applicant was identified by the widow of the deceased threatening her not to pursue the matter any further coupled with the statement given by other witnesses, the Court is of the opinion that granting bail to the applicant at this stage would hamper the investigation. Consequently, on the evidence which has come so far, the Court is of the opinion that the applicant is not entitled for bail. The bail application is rejected at this stage. (Tarun Agarwala, J.) Dated 10.03.2011 Shiv