Dashrath Singh vs State of Rajasthan

Raghuvendra S. Rathore, J.—This criminal miscellaneous petition has been filed by the petitioner Dashrath Singh against the order dated 19.01.2009 passed by the learned Additional District and Sessions Judge, Beawar, whereby he has imposed a condition of furnishing local sureties, while enlarging the accused-petitioner on bail. The petitioner is an accused in FIR No. 11/99, registered at Police Station Vijay Nagar, District Ajmer for the offence under Sections 457 and 380 IPC.

The father of the petitioner, namely Hari Singh, who is present in person submits that he is a poor man and is a resident of district Tonk. He is unable to furnish local sureties in compliance of the order impugned, passed by the court below.

I have taken into consideration the facts of the case and also perused the order impugned passed by the learned court below. It is a settled principle of law that a condition of furnishing local sureties should not be imposed except in extraordinary circumstances. In the instant case, the alleged offence also does not appear to be that grave so as to warrant furnishing of local sureties, to ensure the presence of the accused petitioner at the dates of hearing. It is the consistent view of the Hon''ble Apex Court, laid down in the case of Moti Ram and Others Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, that condition of local sureties cannot be sustained. The Hon''ble Court had held as under:

If sureties are obligatory even for juveniles, females and sickly accused while they can be dispensed with, after being found guilty if during trial when the presence to instruct lawyers is more necessary, an accused must buy release only with sureties while at the appellate level, suretyship is expendable, there is unreasonable restriction on personal liberty with discrimination writ on the, provisions. The hornet''s nest of Part III need not be provoked it read ''bail'' to mean that it popularly docs, and lexically and in American Jurisprudence is stated to Mean, viz., a generic expression used to describe judicial release from Custodia. Bearing in mind the need for liberal interpretation in areas of social justice, individual freedom and indigent''s rights, we hold that bail covers both release on one''s own bond, with or without sureties. When sureties should be demanded and what sum should be insisted on are dependent on variables.

Even so, poor menIndians in monetary terms indigents-young persons infirm individual and women are weak categories and courts should be liberal in releasing them on their own recognisances put whatever reasonable condition you may."

It Shocks one conscience to ask a mason like the petitioner to Furnish sureties for Rs. 10,000/- The magistrate must be given the benefit of doubt for not fully appreciating that our Constitution. Enacted by ''We the People of India'' is meant for the butcher, the baker and the candle-stick maker - shall we add, the bonded labour and pavement dweller.

To add insult to injury, the magistrate has demanded sureties from his own district. (We assume the allegation in the petition). What is a Malayalee, Kannadiga, Tamilian or Andhra to do if arrested for alleged misappropriation or them or criminal respass in Bastar, Port Blair Port Blair. Pahalgaam of Chandni Chowk? He cannot have sureties owning properties in these distant places. He may not know any one there and might have come in a batch or to seek a-job or in a morcha. Judicial disruption of Indian unity is surest achieved buy such provincial allergies. What law prescribes sureties from outside or nonregional linguistic, some times legalistic, applications? What law prescribes the geographical discrimination implicit in asking for sureties from the court district? This tendency takes many forms, sometimes, geographic, sometimes linguistic, some times legalistic. Art 14 protects all Indians qua Indians, within the territory of India. Art 350 sanctions representation to any authority, including a court, for redress of grievances in any language used in the Union of India. Equality before the law implies that even a vakalat 6-526 SCI/78 348 or affirmation made ill any State language according to the law in that State must be accepted everywhere in the territory of India save where a valid legislation to the contrary exists. Otherwise, an adivasi will be unfree in Free India, and likewise many other minorities. This divagation has become necessary to still the judicial beginnings, and to inhibit the process of making Indians aliens in their own homeland. Swaraj is made of united stuff.

This Court, in the cases of Parvez Khan v. State 1986 C.L.R. (Raj.) 611 and Sahajad and Anr. v. State of Rajasthan 1992 RCC 56, had held that a rider of local sureties is in contravention of the settled principle of law. Later on, another Bench of this Court had taken a similar view in the case of Prahlad v. State of Rajasthan 2006 (1) RCC 214.

The aforesaid principles of law laid down by the Apex Court as well as this Court had been consistently followed and the imposition of condition of local sureties certainly amounts to an onerous condition. Therefore, the order passed by the learned court below by imposing local sureties is not at all consistent with, rather contrary to the principles of law. Hence, the imposition of condition of local sureties ordered by the learned court below, vide his impugned order dated 19.01.2009, is not sustainable.

Consequently, this criminal miscellaneous petition is hereby allowed and the condition of furnishing the local sureties, imposed by the learned court below, by the impugned order dated 19.01.2009, is hereby quashed. It is directed that the petitioner shall be free to submit the sureties, as ordered by the learned court below even of District Tonk, of which he is a native. However, the sureties shall be to the satisfaction of the court concerned.