IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Cr.Misc. No.35994 of 2009 1.GIRJA DEVI, W/o Bachan Paswan 2.Punam Devi W/o Tuntun Paswan 3.Neelam Devi W/o Bindeshwar Paswan All resident of Village-Darapatti, P.S. Karja, District- Muzaffarpur. Versus STATE OF BIHAR ----------- 2 29/10/2009 Heard counsel for the petitioners and counsel for the State. The petitioners are named accused in the First Information Report of the year 2000. After three years they had approached this Court for grant of anticipatory bail, which too was rejected by order dated 25.3.2003 in Cr. Misc. No.6010 of 2003. It however has taken them another six years to surrender in this case and they are now said to be in custody since 20.8.2009. Such liberty is not available to any accused even if they are female members. The Criminal Procedure Code does not make any distinction or give any special privilege for lady members to keep absconding. It is only after surrendering before the court they can seek their protection under the Code of Criminal Procedure. That being so, this Court is not inclined to grant bail to the petitioners for the present. Accordingly, their prayer for bail is rejected. As the petitioners are in custody for a period of little more than two months, they may renew their prayer for bail only after completing nine months of their further judicial custody. In other words, the petitioners may renew their prayer for bail on or 2 after 29th July, 2010, initially before the trial court and the trial court will be under obligation to spell out reasons for not concluding the trial taking into account that this case was committed to the court of Sessions in the year 2003 in which four out of five persons are before the court and their trial has been segregated on account of Tuntun Paswan, the remaining accused absconding. That being so, as the Sessions Trial of the petitioners have been segregated, this Court would direct the trial court to ensure that their trial itself is concluded within a period of six months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. If the trial of the petitioners is not concluded on account of laches totally attributable to the prosecution, the petitioners will have liberty to renew their prayer for bail initially, as indicated above, before the trial court and thereafter before this Court. Abhay Kumar (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)