mpt IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO. 4003 of 2007 Santosh Ratan Shinde .. Applicant versus State of Maharashtra .. Respondent ... Mr.S.V. Kotwal i/b M.S.Mohite for the applicant. Mr.D.P. Adsule, APP for the State. CORAM : D.G.KARNIK, J DATED : 29th January 2008 P.C.: 1. The applicant has been charged with an offence punishable u/s.302 r/w sec.34 of the IPC and 37(1) r/w sec.135 of the Bombay Police Act. The applicant was arrested on 6th March 2007 in connection with the said crime which was registered with the Bhosari police station under C.R. No.41 of 2007. 2. The prosecution case in short is that the 2 applicant along with three other co-accused hired a car in which they abducted Balasaheb Dhandhare (hereinafter referred to as ’the deceased’). The deceased was thereafter brought to the spot of the incident where the car was stopped. The deceased was taken out of the car and was assaulted and killed by the applicant and other accused. There are three eye witnesses to the crime. The first is Raju Ramchandra More who is handicapped person and makes his living by begging on the street. The second witness is his wife and also earns her living by begging. The third witness is Santosh Bansode, the driver of the hired car. The first two eye witnesses viz. Raju and his wife Nirmala have stated that they had seen the incident from a distance and had not seen the face of the persons who assaulted the deceased. They were not able to see the assailants. Identification Parade was held and in the said identification parade, third eye witness Santosh Bansode identified one of the accused but he did not identify the present applicant. Thus, no eye witness has identified the present applicant. 3. The applicant is in custody since 6th March 2007. Considering the present pendency of the cases in the Sessions Court at Pune, the trial is not likely to commence in the near future. Taking an 3 overall view of the matter and also the fact that the applicant has not been identified by any of the eye witnesses, in my view the applicant is entitled to be released on bail subject to strict conditions which would ensure his presence at the trial. Hence, I pass the following order:- O R D E R O R D E R O R D E R . The applicant be released on bail on personal bond of Rs.30,000/- with two sureties of like amount subject to the condition that the applicant shall attend the Bhosari police station once a week on every Sunday between 10.00 a.m. and 12 noon and shall not make any inducement or threats to the prosecution witness and shall not tamper with the prosecution evidence. . It is clarified that all observations made in this order are only prima facie for the purpose of considering the bail application and the trial court shall not be influenced by any of the observations at the stage of trial. (D.G. KARNIK, J)