IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Cr.Misc. No.36042 of 2009 BIRENDRA PAL @ BIRENDRA KUMAR PAL S/O SRI RAMKESHWAR PAL VILL- GOPALPUR, P.S-SHEOSAGAR, DISTT- ROHTAS. ---------- Petitioner Versus THE STATE OF BIHAR ----------- Opp. Party ----------- 2 30.10.2009 Heard counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the State. This is one of the white collar offences and that too of swindling the public money of a social welfare scheme wherein the benefits of Mid-Day Meal Scheme in stead of reaching to the needy, deserving and under privileged class people has enriched the coffers of the executors of the policy and scheme. Here in this case, lacs of rupees have been misappropriated in the name of Mid-Day Meal Scheme by the four named persons in the First Information Report and the ingenius on the part of one of them is that he has also filed a counter case against the officials of the Bank only by way of shifting the blame from one head to another. This Court, however, considering the said counter case filed by the co-accused Shyam Narayan Ram to be a valid plea for his being not directly responsible on the ground that he was a 2 coordinator and had no direct role in the alleged defalcation has already released him on bail in this case by an order dated 15.9.2009 in Cr. Misc. No. 28717 of 2009. That order definitely would entitle the petitioner, not named in the First Information Report and also not alleged to have drawn money directly, to claim bail. This Court thus for maintaining consistency must grant bail to the petitioner of course by making it clear that this order shall not be treated as precedent for granting bail to the other co-accused, inasmuch as, this bail is being granted to the petitioner only because the accused Shyam Narayan Ram was granted bail by an earlier order of this Court dated 15.9.2009 and the complicity of the other accused persons whether named in F.I.R. or not named in the F.I.R. in such cases cannot be evaluated on the basis of actual recipient of the money when the whole money of the scheme itself is said to have been embezzled by all the officials entrusted to run the mid day meal scheme. In such cases, every person attached with the scheme must be also held to be equally responsible and 3 therefore, even the petitioner, a Center Coordinator (lk/ku lsoh) could not have been absolved of his role but for grant of bail to the co-accused Shyam Narayan Ram. Be that as it may, this Court would direct for release of the petitioner, namely, Birendra Pal @ Birendra Kumar Pal on furnishing bail bond of Rs. 10,000/- (ten thousand) with two sureties of the like amount each to the satisfaction of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Rohtas at Sasaram in connection with Sasaram (Town) P.S. Case No. 250 of 2009, subject to the condition that one of the bailors will be either his parents or his wife and that the petitioner shall not only cooperate in the investigation as and when required by the police but would also remain regularly present in course of trial and his absence for two consecutive dates shall automatically entail the consequence of cancellation of his present bail. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)