Ranbir Singh vs State of Haryana

R.P. Nagrath, J.—The instant petition is filed by the petitioner praying for anticipatory bail in case FIR No. 139 dated 02.10.2010 under Sections 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC, Police Station Barara, District Ambala. Learned petitioner''s counsel vehemently contended that petitioner is a public officer and will not evade from the arms of law. He simply passed an order of mutation in discharge of his duties as a public officer and is ready to join the investigation.

Petitioner''s counsel also referred the judgment of Hon''ble Supreme Court in Criminal Appeal No. 1436 of 2013 titled as Sumit Mehta Vs. State of N.C.T. of Delhi and it was held as under:-

The law presumes an accused to be innocent till his guilt is proved. As a presumably innocent person, he is entitled to all the fundamental rights including the right to liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.

We also clarify that while granting anticipatory bail, the Courts are expected to consider and keep in mind the nature and gravity of accusation, antecedents of the applicant, namely, about his previous involvement in such offence and the possibility of the applicant to flee from justice. It is also the duty of the Court to ascertain whether accusation has been made with the object of injuring or humiliating him by having him so arrested. It is needless to mention that the Courts are duty bound to impose appropriate conditions as provided under sub-section (2) of Section 438 of the Code.

There cannot be any quarrel with the above propositions. I am however, of the view that it depends on the facts of each case whether the accused in a case deserves protection from the Court by way of anticipatory bail.

The facts of the instant case are that without calculating the share of village proprietors, the petitioner as Assistant Collector sanctioned mutation No. 815 in respect of the said land and on that basis Maya Devi and Man Singh sold the land to Maharshi Markanda University Mulana for Rs. 26,80,000/-. This mutation was sanctioned in the conspiracy with said vendors. It is pertinent to mention here that the said mutation was subsequently cancelled by the District Collector, Ambala. The petitioner is taking support of order dated 25.04.1991 (Annexure P-2) passed by the District Collector, Ambala returning the papers in original to the Tehsildar to find out the share of each individual proprietor in the land measuring 436 Bighas 4 Biswas, to be used in a partition case. No such document is placed on record that in compliance of this order any such share of each individual proprietor of the village was determined and any order granting permission to the said partition was passed. In the absence thereof, the only outcome is that this is a serious criminal act on the part of the petitioner.

Therefore, I find no merit in the prayer for pre-arrest bail to the petitioner. Dismissed.