The main legal point established in the judgment is the necessity for supervening circumstances or allegations of misuse of liberty to entertain an application for cancellation of bail, and the limitations on granting anticipatory bail under the Act of 1989.

ORDER :

Rule. Learned APP waives service of rule for Respondent No. 1-State and learned Advocate, Mr. Dave, waives for Respondent No. 2-original accused.

1. By way of this application, filed under Section 439(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (in brief, ‘the Code’), the applicant-first informant seeks to assail the order dated 26.06.2023, passed in Cr. M.A. No. 855 of 2023, by the learned 3rd Additional Sessions Judge, Gandhinagar, granting anticipatory bail to the respondent-original accused No. 1 in connection with the offence registered with the Chandkheda Police Station, District Ahmedabad City, being CR No. 11191008230406 of 2023 for the offences punishable under Sections 323, 294(b), 506(1) and 114 of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (in brief the ‘Act of 1989’).

2. Learned Advocate for the applicant would submit that learned trial Court has not taken into consideration the offence under the provisions of the Act of 1989, while granting bail to the respondent-accused. He would further submit that the trial Court granted bail, only on the ground that Respondent No. 2-accused No. 1 is a lady accused and that she has no criminal antecedents. It was submitted that the trial Court ought to have taken into consideration the fact that there is a prima facie case made out against the accused persons, from the plain reading of the FIR. He would further submit that the impugned order is an unreasoned order and learned Court below has failed to notice and observe the well settled principles for grant and refusal of bail. It was submitted that there is also misuse of liberty by Respondent No. 2-accused No. 1, whereby, she is alleged to have tempered with the CCTV footage with the help of a third party and she has also been trying to influence the witnesses and for which already a complaint has been given on 05.07.2023, which is produced as Annexure-F to this petition.

2.1 In support of his submissions, learned Advocate, Mr. Japee, placed reliance on the recent decision of the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Prathvi Raj Chauhan vs. Union of India and Others, (2020) 4 SCC 727 and more particularly, the observations made at Paragraphs-7 and 8 thereof, which reads as under:

“7. This Court in Vilas Pandurang Pawar and Another vs. State of Maharashtra and Others, (2012) 8 SCC 795, has observed thus:

“10. The scope of Section 18 of the SC/ST Act read with Section 438 of the Code is such that it creates a specific bar in the grant of anticipatory bail. When an offence is registered against a person under the provisions of the SC/ST Act, no court shall entertain an application for anticipatory bail, unless it prima facie finds that such an offence is not made out. Moreover, while considering the application for bail, scope for appreciation of evidence and other material on record is limited. The court is not expected to indulge in critical analysis of the evidence on record. When a provision has been enacted in the Special Act to protect the persons who belong to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes and a bar has been imposed in granting bail under Section 438 of the Code, the provision in the Special Act cannot be easily brushed aside by elaborate discussion on the evidence.”

8. This Court in Shakuntla Devi vs. Baljinder Singh, (2014) 15 SCC 521, has observed thus:

“4. The High Court has not given any finding in the impugned order that an offence under the aforesaid Act is not made out against the respondent and has granted anticipatory bail, which is contrary to the provisions of Section 18 of the aforesaid Act as well as the aforesaid decision of this Court in Vilas Pandurang Pawar case. Hence, without going into the merits of the allegations made against the respondent, we set aside the impugned order of the High Court granting bail to the respondent.”

2.2 Learned APP adopted the arguments advanced by the learned Advocat