IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Criminal Misc. No. M-19145 of 2008 Date of decision: 9th January, 2009 Raj Kumar Sood … Petitioner Versus State of Punjab … Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA Present: Mr. M.L. Saggar, Senior Advocate with Mr. G.S. Brar, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Anter Singh Brar, DAG Punjab for the State. Mr. Gurcharan Dass, Advocate for the complainant. KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA, J. (ORAL) In the present case, FIR No.304 was registered on 28th September, 2007 at Police Station Focal Point, Ludhiana under Section 420, 465, 467, 468, 471 IPC. A period of one year and four months is going to elapse and investigation has not been concluded. Two of the accused have been allowed to flee from India and proceedings regarding declaring them proclaimed offender are pending. Investigating Officer is present in Court. Mr. Anter Singh Brar, DAG Punjab, on instructions from SI Inderjit Singh Investigating Officer, has stated that the entire investigation shall be concluded within a period of three months. Petitioner has been granted pre-arrest interim bail by a Coordinate Bench of this Court on August 1, 2008. Petitioner has already enjoyed interim pre-arrest bail for a period of about five months. Three Criminal Misc. No. M-19145 of 2008 months more will not make any difference to conclusion of the investigation, especially when the petitioner is an attesting witness to the sale deed. Without observing anything on the merits of the case, present petition is disposed off with a direction that the petitioner shall be permitted to remain on interim bail on his furnishing bail bonds, which shall contain a condition that as and when report under Section 173 Cr.P.C. is filed, petitioner shall appear before the trial Court. Trial Court shall examine the entire documents and statement gathered by the Investigating Officer and shall decide the regular bail application of the petitioner on merits, without taking any observation of this Court into consideration. With these observations, present petition is disposed off. [KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA] JUDGE January 9, 2009 rps 2