-: 1 :- IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY APPELLATE SIDE CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO.1433 OF 2007 In CRIMINAL APPEAL NO.1332 OF 2007 Rahul @ Bapu Laxman Mankar : Applicant V/s. The State of Maharashtra : Respondent ... Mr.P.G.Sarda for the applicant. Mrs.P.H.Kantharia, Addl. Public Prosecutor for the State. Mr.S.N.Bhosale (appointed) for the appellant in Criminal Appeal no.50 of 2008. ... CORAM : BILAL NAZKI & S.A.BOBDE,JJ. DATE : MARCH 10, 2008. P.C. 1. This is an application seeking bail by the accused no.2 in Sessions Case no.185 of 2005 in which he has been convicted for offences under sections 302, 364 and 201 of the Indian Penal Code. Effectively, he has been sentenced to life imprisonment. 2. The learned counsel for the applicant-appellant submits that there was no direct evidence before the Court -: 2 :- and the appellant has been convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence and only there were two circumstances against the accused which were taken by the learned Sessions Judge to have been sufficiently proved and on the basis of those two circumstances he has been convicted. One of the circumstances being that the deceased was last seen with the appellant and on his arrest, bloodstained clothes belonging to the accused-appellant were recovered from him. The prosecution case was that the deceased was seen with the present appellant at 3 p.m. on 6.10.2004 and the body was found on 7.10.2004 at 10 a.m. and according to the Doctor, the death might have occurred early morning on 7.10.2004. Therefore, there was a gap between the deceased having been seen with the appellant and the death of the deceased. The second circumstance was that the clothes worn by the appellant at the time of committing the alleged offence were recovered and they had blood. He was arrested on 13.10.2004 and the recovery was made on the same day. Prima facie, we feel that the applicant needs to be granted bail. He was also on bail during trial and did not try to jump over the bail. 3. For these reasons, we allow the application and direct release of the applicant-accused no.2 (Rahul @ Bapu Laxman Mankar) on bail, subject to his furnishing bail bond in -: 3 :- the sum of Rs.10,000/- with two sureties to the satisfaction of the trial Court. 4. We make it clear that the observations made in this order are purely for the purpose of deciding whether bail should be granted or not and should not be taken as an expression of opinion over the merits of the judgement of the learned Sessions Judge. (BILAL NAZKI, J.) (S.A. BOBDE, J.)