Judgment

K.G. Balakrishnan, J.—Leave granted.

2. An order passed by the learned Single Judge of the High Court of Madras at Madurai granting bail to the respondent herein is challenged before us. The respondent is one of the accused in a criminal case charged by the Inspector of Alangulam Police Station in Tirunelveli District. The charges are under Sections 147, 148, 120B, 341, 302, 207, 212 and 109 IPC read with Section 25(1) of the Arms Act.

3. The brief case of the prosecution is that one Aladi Aruna, an ex-Minister of the Government of Tamil Nadu, had gone for a morning walk along with one Ponraj on 31.12.2004. At about 7.15 a.m. while Aladi Aruna, Ponraj and one Socraties were walking through Pashupati Road, accused A3 accompanied by A2 and A4 intercepted Aladi Aruna and A3 attempted to shoot him with his country-made revolver but the revolver did not work whereupon A2 inflicted injuries on Aladi Aruna with Aruval (sickle) on the back of his head and when his friend Ponraj tried to save him, he was also attacked by A4 who inflicted injuries on his neck and head. Socraties also tried to save them, but A2, A3 and A4 turned against him and he could manage to escape from the scene of occurrence. A1, who was also present at the place of occurrence, warned A2, A3 and A4 since he sensed that somebody was coming and all of them ran away from the place of incident. Aladi Aruna and Ponraj died at the spot. Accused persons fled the place on a motorbike.

4. On the basis of the information collected during the investigation, present respondent was arrested on 30.1.2005. The prosecution alleged that the respondent had a strong motive to do away with Aladi Aruna as there were disputes between the respondent and the deceased Aladi Aruna. The respondent has Engineering Colleges at Tirunelveli and Nagercoil. In 2000, he started another Engineering College at Athiyuthu, Alangulam. The prosecution alleged that deceased Aladi Aruna had started another engineering college near to the college run by the respondent and on account of this, there were disputes between the respondent and Aladi Aruna. The respondent entered into a conspiracy with other accused and pursuant to that Aladi Aruna and Ponraj were killed on the date of the incident. During the course of investigation, the present respondent was implicated and was arrested on 30.1.2005.

5. The respondent filed a bail application before the District & Sessions Judge, Tirunelveli. The learned District & Sessions Judge dismissed the bail application on 31.1.2005. Thereafter, the respondent moved another bail application before the High Court by filing Criminal O.P.No. 1242 of 2005. The High Court dismissed that application on 8.2.2005. The Order passed by the High Court was challenged before this Court in S.L.P. (Crl.) No. 998 of 2005. Later on, the respondent withdrew that SLP and moved the High Court by filing Criminal O.P.No. 2439 of 2003. The High Court dismissed that application on 4.3.2005. Again, he moved the High Court by filing O.P.No. 2862 of 2005, but withdrew that application on 21.3.2005. On 1.4.2005 again, he moved another application for bail by filing Criminal O.P.No. 3242/2005, which was dismissed by the learned Single Judge by an elaborate order. Learned Single Judge made certain observations in that order. It was observed that :

“While there is a confession statement recorded from one of the accused, the recovery of the part of the amount, which has been received by the hirelings from A-10, is also brought to the notice of the Court. In the instant case, this Court is able to see force in the contention of the learned Additional Public Prosecutor that in a case like this, if the Petitioner, who, according to the prosecution, is very influential, is bailed out, there is every possibility of tampering with the evidence. Under the circumstances, this Court is of the view that though the charge sheet is laid in the case, it is not a fit case for granting bail.”

6. The respondent chal