Rohit vs State Of H.P

Rakesh Kainthla, J

The petitioner has filed the present petition for seeking regular bail in FIR No. 22 of 2024, dated 07.02.2024, registered at Police Station Paonta Sahib, District Sirmour, H.P., for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 363, 376 DA of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 4 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act).

It is asserted that the police had arrested the petitioner on 08.02.2024 based on false allegations. The matter is pending before the learned Trial Court for about 20 months, and only a few prosecution witnesses have been examined. The matter was listed for recording the statement of the prosecution’s witnesses on 18.12.2025. The petitioner had earlier filed a bail petition, which was registered as Cr.MP(M) No. 460 of 2024, and was dismissed on 02.07.2024. He had filed an application seeking temporary bail, which was allowed, and the petitioner was released on temporary/interim bail. The petitioner belongs to a respectable family, and he has roots in the society. He would abide by the terms and conditions that the Court may impose. Hence, it was prayed that the present petition be allowed and the petitioner be released on bail.

The petition is opposed by filing a status report asserting that the victim’s mother made a complaint to the police stating therein that the victim had gone to her friend’s house on 05.02.2024; however, she did not return during the night. She (victim) returned on 06.02.2024 at 8:00 A.M. She revealed on enquiry that when she was returning to her home, petitioner Rohit had asked her to board the vehicle. He told her that he would drop her off at her home, but he took her to some other place. One person accompanied the petitioner, and both of them raped her. The police registered the F.I.R. and investigated the matter. The police seized the vehicle identified by the victim, and recovered one blanket and a pillow. The police arrested the petitioner and the co-accused. The petitioner’s clothes were seized by the police. As per the date of birth certificate, the victim was born on 12.09.2010. She was aged 13 years, 4 months and 26 days on the date of the incident. The mobile phones of the petitioner and the co-accused were seized. The clothes were preserved by the Medical Officer, and these were sent to SFSL, Junga. As per the report of the analysis, human semen was detected on the underwear of the victim, the undergarments of petitioner Rohit and co-accused Rajesh Kumar, the T-shirt of co-accused Rajesh Kumar, the blanket recovered from the vehicle and the lower of the victim. The challan has been presented before the Court. The report of analysis was received from FSL, Junga, which shows that the DNA profile obtained from the underwear of the victim matched the DNA profile obtained from the blood sample of the petitioner. Similarly, the DNA profile obtained from the lower of the victim matched with the DNA profile obtained from the blood of the co-accused. The DNA profile obtained from the blanket recovered from the vehicle matched the DNA profile obtained from the blood sample of the petitioner. The supplementary charge sheet was filed before the Court. Twenty witnesses out of twenty-eight witnesses have been examined. The matter was listed for recording the statements of the prosecution witnesses on 19.12.2025. Hence, the status report.

I have heard Mr K.S. Gill, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr Lokender Kutlehria, learned Additional Advocate General for the respondent/State.

Mr K.S. Gill, learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner is innocent and he was falsely implicated. The co-accused has been released on bail, and the petitioner is also entitled to bail on the principle of parity. The prosecution has failed to complete the evidence within a reasonable time. Hence, he prayed that the present petition be allowed and the petitioner be released on bail.

Mr Lokender Kutlehria, learned Additional Advocate General for the respondent/State, submitted that the petitioner had earlier filed a bail petitions which were dismissed by this Court. A subsequent bail petition only lies when there is a change in circumstances. The prosecution has examined 20 witnesses out of 28 cited witnesses. The matter was fixed for recording the statements of remaining prosecution witnesses on 19.12.2025. There is no delay in the progress of the trial. Therefore, he prayed that the present petition be dismissed.

I have given considerable thought to the submissions made at the bar and have gone through the record carefully.

It is undisputed that the petitioner had earlier filed bail petitions, which were registered as Cr.MP(M) No. 460 of 2024 and Cr.MP(M) No. 2554 of 2024 and were dismissed on 02.07.2024 and 29.11.2024. The petitioner had also filed Special Leave to Appeal (Criminal) No. 427 of 2025 before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, which was dismissed as withdrawn on 15.04.2025. It was held in State of Maharashtra v. Captain Buddhikota Subha Rao (1989) Suppl. 2 SCC 605, that once a bail application has been dismissed, a subsequent bail application can only be considered if there is a change of circumstances. It was observed:

“Once that application was rejected, there was no question of granting a similar prayer. That is virtually overruling the earlier decision without there being a change in the fact situation. And when we speak of change, we mean a substantial one, which has a direct impact on the earlier decision and not merely cosmetic changes, which are of little or no consequence. 'Between the two orders, there was a gap of only two days, and it is nobody's case that during these two days, drastic changes had taken place, necessitating the release of the respondent on bail. Judicial discipline, propriety and comity demanded that the impugned order should not have been passed, reversing all earlier orders, including the one rendered by Puranik, J., only a couple of days before, in the absence of any substantial change in the fact situation. In such cases, it is necessary to act with restraint and circumspection so that the process of the Court is not abused by a litigant and an impression does not gain ground that the litigant has either successfully avoided one judge or selected another to secure an order which had hitherto eluded him.

Similarly, it was held in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan @ Pappu Yadav (2004) 7 SCC 528 that where an earlier bail application has been rejected, the Court has to consider the rejection of the earlier bail application and then consider why the subsequent bail application should be allowed. It was held:

“11. In regard to cases where earlier bail applications have been rejected, there is a further onus on the court to consider the subsequent application for grant of bail by noticing the grounds on which earlier bail applications have been rejected and after such consideration, if the court is of the opinion that bail has to be granted then the said court will have to give specific reasons why in spite of such earlier rejection the subsequent bail application should be granted.”

A similar view was taken in State of T.N. v. S.A. Raja, (2005) 8 SCC 380, wherein it was observed:

When a learned Single Judge of the same court had denied bail to the respondent for certain reasons, and that order was unsuccessfully challenged before the appellate forum, without there being any major change of circumstances, another fresh application should not have been dealt with within a short span of time unless there were valid grounds giving rise to a tenable case for bail. Of course, the principles of res judicata are not applicable to bail applications, but the repeated filing of bail applications without there being any change of circumstances would lead to bad precedents.”

This position was reiterated in Prasad Shrikant Purohit v. State of Maharashtra (2018) 11 SCC 458, wherein it was observed:

“30. Before concluding, we must note that though an accused has a right to make successive applications for the grant of bail, the court entertaining such subsequent bail applications has a duty to consider the reasons and grounds on which the earlier bail applications were rejected. In such cases, the court also has a duty to record the fresh grounds, which persuade it to take a view different from the one taken in the earlier applications.”

It was held in Ajay Rajaram Hinge v. State of Maharashtra, 2023 SCC OnLine Bom 1551, that a successive bail application can be filed if there is a material change in the circumstances, which means a change in the facts or the law. It was observed:

“7. It needs to be noted that the right to file successive bail applications accrues to the applicant only on the existence of a material change in circumstances. The sine qua non for filing subsequent bail applications is a material change in circumstances. A material change in circumstances settled by law is a change in the fact situation or law that requires the earlier view to be interfered with or where the earlier finding has become obsolete. However, a change in circumstance has no bearing on the salutary principle of judicial propriety that successive bail application needs to be decided by the same Judge on the merits, if available at the place of sitting. There needs to be clarity between the power of a judge to consider the application and a person's right based on a material change in circumstances. A material change in circumstance creates in a person accused of an offence the right to file a fresh bail application. But the power to decide such a subsequent application operates in a completely different sphere, unconnected with the facts of a case. Such power is based on the well-settled and judicially recognized principle that if successive bail applications on the same subject are permitted to be disposed of by different Judges, there would be conflicting orders, and the litigant would be pestering every Judge till he gets an order to his liking resulting in the credibility of the Court and the confidence of the other side being put in issue and there would be wastage of Court's time and that judicial discipline requires that such matter must be placed before the same Judge, if he is available, for orders. The satisfaction of material change in circumstances needs to be adjudicated by the same Judge who had earlier decided the application. Therefore, the same Judge needs to adjudicate whether there is a change in circumstance as claimed by the applicant, which entitles him to file a subsequent bail application.”

Therefore, the present bail petition can only be considered on the basis of the change in the circumstances, and it is not permissible to review the order passed by the Court.

The status report mentions that the prosecution had cited 28 witnesses, out of whom 20 witnesses have been examined. The matter was listed for recording the statements of the remaining prosecution witnesses on 19.12.2025. This shows that the prosecution has examined the majority of the witnesses and the trial is at its fag end. The petitioner has not filed the copies of order-sheets to demonstrate that the delay is attributable to the prosecution or the Court; therefore, the petitioner cannot be held entitled to bail on the ground of delay in the progress of the trial.

It was submitted that the co-accused has been released on bail, and the petitioner is also entitled to bail on the principle of parity. This submission cannot be accepted. It was laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Sagar v. State of U.P., 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2584, that a person cannot be released on bail after applying the principle of parity without examining his role. It was observed:

“14. What flows from the above judgments, which have been referred to, only to the limited extent indicated above, is that the High Courts speak in one voice that parity is not the sole ground on which bail can be granted. That, undoubtedly, is the correct position in law. The word ‘parity’ is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “equality, especially of pay or position.” When weighing an application on parity, it is the ‘position’ that is the clincher. The requirement of ‘position’ is not met only by involvement in the same offence. Position means what the person whose application is being weighed, his position in crime, i.e., his role, etc. There can be different roles played - someone part of a large group, intending to intimidate; an instigator of violence; someone who throws hands at the other side, instigated by such words spoken by another, someone who fired a weapon or swung a machete - parity of these people will be with those who have performed similar acts, and not with someone who was part of the group to intimidate the other by the sheer size of the gathering, with another who attempted to hack away at the opposer's limbs with a weapon.”

In the present case, the petitioner's DNA was found on the clothes of the victim and on the blanket left at the spot. The DNA of the co-accused was not found at the spot. This circumstance distinguishes the case of the petitioner from that of the co-accused, and the petitioner cannot claim parity with the co-accused.

Thus, the petitioner has not shown any change in circumstances, and he is not entitled to bail.

No other point was urged.

In view of the above, the present petition fails, and it is dismissed.

The observation made herein before shall remain confined to the disposal of the instant petition and will have no bearing, whatsoever on the merits of the case.