The main legal point established in the judgment is the importance of balancing fair investigation with preventing unjustifiable detention of the accused, as well as the necessity of custodial interrogation when warranted.

M.L. Mehta, J.

1. By way of this petition, the petitioner is seeking anticipatory bail in FIR No. 70/2009, P.S. Nabi Karim, Delhi.

2. The FIR was registered on the statement of Reshma Manoj Aggarwal wife of Manoj Aggarwal who was allegedly kidnapped at gun point on 07.07.2009 and at the gun point was taken in a car and confined at Rana Paper Mill by co accused persons at the instance of the petitioner. It is alleged that he was kept in confinement inside a room there from 07.07.2009 to 10.09.2009. Later his wife Reshma filed a Hebeas Corpus petition at Aurangabad Bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court. The petitioner was produced there and was released. It is also alleged against the petitioner and co-accused persons that they had demanded a ransom of Rs.50.00 lacs for the release of the petitioner. On account of this allegation section 364A was also added in the FIR.

3. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted that the instant FIR registered against the petitioner and co-accused persons was a counter-blast of the FIR registered against Manoj Aggarwal and his brother Ashwini Aggarwal at Nai Mandi, Muzaffarnagar under section 420/406 IPC on 04.02.2009. In this regard, it is submitted that the petitioner had filed a Writ at Allahabad High Court from where he got the protection from arrest till the filing of the charge-sheet. It is submitted that there is no mention of any ransom amount much less an amount of Rs.50.00 lacs by the petitioner in the statements of Manoj Aggaral. It was next submitted that till date no notice under section 160 Cr. P.C. was given to the petitioner and that the petitioner was willing to join the investigation. The learned counsel relied upon the cases of Ram Saran Vs. State of Haryana, Criminal Misc. No. 32158-M of 1998; Amarjit Singh Vs. State of Punjab, Criminal Misc. No. 1234-M of 1999; Siri Krishan Dass Vs. State of Haryana, Criminal Misc. No. 2276-M all of Punjab & Haryana High Court and Parmanand Saini Vs. State, 89 (20010) DLT 637 of this High Court.

4. On the other hand, learned APP strongly opposed the grant of anticipatory bail alleging the offences to be of very serious nature. It was submitted that Manoj Aggarwal was not only kept in confinement for 63 days, but, he was also seriously beaten and tortured and ransom amount of Rs. 50.00 lacs was demanded for his release. It is submitted that Manoj Aggarwal was recovered by the police from Rana Paper Mill, which is owned by the petitioner. It is next submitted that Manoj Aggarwal in his statement under section 164 Cr. P.C. has categorically implicated the petitioner in the commission of the offences. It is lastly submitted that the petitioner is absconding and could not be arrested despite several raid conducted at his premises and consequently NBWs were issued against him and that being so, there was no requirement of issue of notice under section 160 Cr. P.C. to him.

5. The fact that there was some business transaction between the petitioner and Aggarwals and the later owed some money to the petitioner and on account of that a FIR under section 406/420 IPC was registered against them at Nai Mandi, Muzzarnagar on 04.02.2009, could not be said to be the reason for registration of FIR against the petitioner and co-accused persons as a counter-blast. The said FIR was registered against Aggarwals more than 5 months before the incident. On the other hand the non payment of the amount by Aggarwals to the petitioner could also be the proper ground for the commission of offences by the accused persons. The case of Ram Saran (supra) relied upon was on its own facts wherein the anticipatory bail was granted as there were two cross FIRs against the parties registered on the same day. In the given fact situation the FIR against the petitioner was found to be counter-blast. That judgment of Single Bench is not applicable to the present case. Similarly, the case of Amarjeet Singh (supra) relied upon was also on its own facts of business