sns 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION ANTICIPATORY BAIL APPLICATION NO. 839 OF 2011 1 Shrikant Ambadas Boga 2 Manojkumar Bajrang Shinde ..Applicants. v/s. The State ..Respondent. Mr. Ashok B. Tajane, adv. for the Applicants. Mr. Y.S.Shinde, APP for the respondent/State. CORAM : J.H.BHATIA, J. DATE : 10th October, 2011 PC : 1 Applicants seek anticipatory bail in crime no.294 of 2011 for the offences punishable under sections 420, 468, 471 r/w section 34 of the I.P.C. on the report lodged by one Kapil Nagendra Giri, Deputy Secretary to the Vice-Chancellor of Solapur University. 2 Prosecution case in brief, is that the viva-voce test of second year students of Indira Gandhi Engineering College was held on 3rd and 4th May, 2011 and professor Dr. Kashid and Professor Kolekar of Walchand Engineering College were the examiners. They prepared marks list of the students and handed over the same in a sealed packet to the applicant no. 1, who is also teacher of Indira Gandhi Engineering College. Applicant no. 2 is Laboratory Assistant of the said college. Sealed packet containing sns 2 marks list was submitted by the applicant no.1 to the university on 24.5.2011. On 17/7/2011 an anonymous call was received by Dr. Kashid that the marks list prepared by him was tampered with and changed. On the basis of that he approached university. Some enquiry was held and Dr. Kashid informed the university that though the seal on the packet was intact and his signature on the packet was also intact, packet appears to have been cut by one side and the marks list appears to have been changed. According to him, marks list in the packet was not in handwriting. Some enquiry was made by the university. It is suspected that the applicant no.1 might have changed that list because he wanted that maximum students of second year engineering, who had taken direct admission in the second year should be cleared so that there should be sufficient students for the third year in the said college. The learned APP on instructions from the I.O., who is present, states that the person, who had made anonymous call could not be traced. Call was made from a public booth and, thus, the person, who had made call did not want to come forward. Police want custody of the applicant for the purpose of interrogation to find out truth. 3 Fact remains that though the sealed packet was in custody of the applicant no.1 from 4th May to 24th May, 2011, he had submitted it to the university on 24.5.2011 and till 17th July, 2011 sealed packet was in custody of some other person in the university. When the packet was sns 3 submitted by the applicant no.1 to the university, nobody had found any fault with the same. Anonymous call was made more than 1 and half months after the packet was submitted and during all that period, the packet was in custody of someone else. Therefore, at this stage it is very difficult to find who could be responsible for changing marks list. Though the matter is very serious but at the same time in my opinion, merely on the basis of suspicion in such a case, it would be improper to put applicants in police custody. Once they are taken in police custody, the immediate effect of the same would be their suspension from the service and their career would be practically finished. Even if later on they are cleared in the investigation, they can never get back their respect as teachers. Taking into consideration the circumstances, in my opinion, investigation can be made without the custodial interrogation. 4 Therefore, in the event of arrest in crime no.294 of 2011, applicants be released on their executing PR of Rs.10,000/- each with surety in the like amount with condition that they shall make themselves available to the police as and when required for the purpose of interrogation and shall fully co-operate with the investigation. If required, they shall also give specimen of their handwritings, signatures, etc. 5 Application stands disposed off. (J.H.BHATIA, J.) sns 4