The main legal point established in the judgment is the significance of effective investigation in criminal cases and the duty of the investigating officer and the SHO in ensuring timely and thorough investigation in serious offences.

Ved Prakash Vaish, J.:--

1. These two applications filed under Section 438 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred as ‘Cr.P.C.’) on behalf of the applicants who seek anticipatory bail in case FIR No. 247/2014 under Sections 302/34 IPC registered at P.S. Kanjhawala, Delhi.

2. Since both these applications are arising out of the same FIR, these are being taken up together for disposal.

3. Learned counsel for the applicants submits that the applicants have been falsely implicated in this case, no specific role has been assigned to the applicants and no specific injury has been attributed to the applicants in the FIR. He further submits that applicant Attar Singh is an old person and is a cancer patient.

4. Learned counsel for the applicants also submits that applicant Smt. Vidya Devi is not named in the FIR and she has been falsely implicated and her name was introduced in the FIR later on. He also submits that the incident is alleged to have taken place at 1:30 a.m. in the mid night whereas the FIR was lodged at about 10:00 a.m., therefore, there is an unexplained delay of about 8 hours.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner has relied upon judgments in ‘Sonu v. State (NCT of Delhi)’, 2009 (4) JCC 2628 and ‘Dinesh v. State’, 1995 JCC 569.

6. Per contra, learned APP for the State urges that the deceased was more than 80 years. The applicants and co-accused Rakesh and Vinod who are sons of the applicant gave him beatings. He has also pointed out that one day prior there were heated arguments between the deceased and Attar Singh and his two sons gave death threats to his father.

7. The factual matrix of the case as set out in the FIR are that on 30.03.2014 complainant Jay Singh, who is son of the deceased, lodged a report that at about 1:30 a.m. in the intervening night of 29/30.03.2014 when he was sleeping at his house he heard some voices from outside his house. After hearing them he went outside and saw that Attar Singh (applicant) and his sons Rakesh and Vinod @ Meenu were beating his father on the street near the drain. When he reached there to protect his father they pushed him and ran away, he fell down on the street and started shouting in anxiousness, hearing which his sons Naveen and Amit also came at the place of incident and took their grandfather inside the house. He also stated that at night due to anxiousness he did not inform the police. In the morning at about 7:30 a.m. when he went to his father’s room he saw blood on the face of his father, his upper clothes were torn, his clothes had blood stains on them and he was lying dead. Thereafter, the matter was reported to the police. He has also stated that Rakesh son of applicant Attar Singh used to come to his father’s room for drinking alcohol but his father always restricted him from coming to his room. The complainant and his father also informed about the same to the applicant Attar Singh hearing which Rakesh and his family fought with them. On 29.03.2014 his father had heated arguments with the applicant and his two sons who gave him death threats saying that he has defamed their family.

8. I have carefully considered the submissions made by learned counsel for the applicants and learned APP for the State.

9. The judgments relied upon by learned counsel for the petitioner are not applicable to the facts of this case. It is settled rule of law that while considering an application for anticipatory bail, the considerations which should weigh with the Court need not be the same as for an application for release on bail after arrest. The application under Section 438 and 439 of Cr.P.C. operate in different fields.

10. The parameters for grant of anticipatory bail are highlighted by the Apex Court in ‘Parvinderjit Singh and Anr. v. State (Union Territory Chandigarh) and Anr.’, (2008) 13 SCC 431, in para 9 and 10 of the judgment wherein it was observed as under: -

“9. It is clear from a bare reading of the provisions that for making an application i