1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY, NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR Criminal Application No.3172 of 2008 (Jogendar Singh Maya Singh Bhada and another v. State of Maharashtra, through PSO Ramnagar, Tq. & Distt. Chandrapur) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-- Office Notes, Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders or directions : Court's or Judge's orders and Registrar's orders. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Shri S.V. Sirpurkar, Advocate for Applicants. Shri S.S. Doifode, APP for Non-Applicant. CORAM : R.C. Chavan, J. DATE : 6th October, 2008 This is an application under Section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for being admitted to bail in the event of arrest in connection with offences punishable under Sections 147, 148, 149, 307 and 452 of the Penal Code read with Sections 4 and 25 of the Arms Act, which allegedly took place on 8-6-2008. The three other co-accused, who had been arrested, have already been bailed out. The names of the applicants do not appear in the FIR. I have heard the learned Additional Public Prosecutor, who was instructed by Investigating Officer PSI K.K. Singh. The Investigating Officer has also made available the case diary to the learned Additional Public Prosecutor. According to the learned Additional Public Prosecutor, the 2 application deserves to be rejected, because the police want custody of the applicant in order to recover the weapons, on the basis of their involvement indicated during interrogation of the co-accused. This interrogation was itself completed on 9-6-2008. However, thereafter the Investigation Officer has not cared to collect any independent evidence. There cannot be a dispute that the involvement of the co-accused could be indicated in course of interrogation of another co-accused and though such a statement may not be receivable in evidence at trial, it may form a basis for investigation. But it is seen that no such investigation is carried out. The learned Additional Public Prosecutor was also unable to state, in spite of the assistance by Investigating Officer PSI K.K. Singh, that in the statement by the co-accused the present applicants were shown to have possessed some weapons, and so the custody of the applicants is required for recovery of the said weapons. The learned Additional Public Prosecutor submitted that the applicants have to be put to Test Identification Parade, since the victims did not know the names of the assailants. But here too, the Investigating Officer seems to have allowed the persons, who had been arrested, to be bailed out without subjecting them to Test Identification Parade. It is not clear as to what the Investigating Officer is going to achieve by subjecting the present applicants four months after the incident to identification parade when they are moving around the town and what would be the value of such Test Identification Parade. The case diary also is not shown to indicate that the Investigating Officer had made any consistent effort to secure the arrest of the present applicants. 3 In view of this, since the Investigating Officer does not appear to very keen on arresting the applicants and completing the investigation, which would require their being any custody, the application has to be allowed on the following terms : In the event of arrest, the applicant be released on bail on each of their furnishing a PR bond of Rs.25,000/- with a solvent surety in the like amount on the conditions that the applicants shall report at the Police Station concerned on 13-10-2008 at 10 a.m. and thereafter as and when called, that they shall co-operate with the investigation, and that they shall not tamper with the witnesses or evidence in any manner. At this stage, it may be noted that ordinarily while hearing an application for anticipatory bail, it would have been necessary to hear the complainant. However, in this case, in the circumstances enumerated above, since the other accused have already been bailed out and the involvement of the applicants is not indicated in the FIR, it is not necessary to issue any notice to the complainant. JUDGE Lanjewar