IMPORTANT POINT
Violation of bail conditions justifies cancellation of bail, emphasizing the court's authority to enforce compliance.

ORDER :

A. BADHARUDEEN, J.

Crl.M.C. No.5631 of 2022 has been filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 [hereinafter referred as ‘Cr.P.C’ for short], at the instance of the defacto complainant in C.C. No.95/2022 on the files of the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court-VIII, Ernakulam, arose out of Crime No.606/2020 of Maradu Police Station, challenging the order in C.M.P. No.2442 of 2022 dated 10.08.2022, whereby the learned Magistrate disallowed the prayer to cancel the bail granted to the 1 ^st accused in the above case. The respondents herein are the State represented by the learned Public Prosecutor and the 1 ^st accused in the above case.

2. Crl.M.C. No.5639 of 2022 is at the instance of accused Nos.2 and 3, challenging the same order, whereby their bail was cancelled by the learned Magistrate on finding violation of bail conditions. The respondents herein are the State and the defacto complainant in the above case.

3. The parties will be referred as ‘prosecution’, ‘accused’ and ‘defacto complainant’, for convenience.

4. Heard the learned counsel for the defacto complainant and accused and also the learned Public Prosecutor, in detail. Perused the records and relevant materials available.

5. Tracing yesteryear of this case, as on 02.11.2020, accused Nos.1 to 3 in Crime No.606 of 2020 of Maradu Police Station, Ernakulam (later the investigation was taken over by the Crime Branch and the crime number got changed as Crime No.145/CBEOW/EKM/2023), were granted regular bail by this Court, by allowing B.A. Nos.6695 and 6714 of 2020 by common order dated 02.11.2020, by imposing stringent conditions. At the time of granting of bail to accused Nos.1 to 3, the conditions imposed by this Court are as under:

(i) They shall surrender their passport before the jurisdictional court and shall not go abroad without permission of the court. In case they do not have a passport, they shall file an affidavit to that effect.

(ii) They shall appear before the investigating officer on all Mondays between 9 a.m. and 12 noon for a period of two months or till the filing of the final report, whichever is earlier.

(iii) They shall produce all documents, which are called upon to be produced by the investigating officer.

(iv) They shall not get involved in similar cases during the pendency of the bail,

(v) They shall not tamper with evidence, intimidate or influence the witnesses .

6. According to the defacto complainant, who filed C.M.P. No.2442/2022 in C.C. No.95/2022 under Section 439(2) of Cr.P.C. before the trial court to cancel the bail granted to the accused, though the accused executed bail bonds and continued on bail, they failed to comply condition Nos.1 and 4 of the bail order of this Court. The trial court, in fact, given much emphasis to violation of condition No.1 and accordingly bail granted to accused Nos. 2 and 3 was cancelled. But, the trial court did not cancel the bail granted to the 1 ^st accused, noticing that the 1 ^st accused surrendered his passport in obedience to the direction of this Court. Though, the 1 ^st accused got released his passport for a short visit to Dubai for business purpose and the passport was released with direction to surrender the same on 28.03.2021, the 1 ^st accused surrendered the passport on that day itself.

7. While justifying the order of the trial court, whereby the bail granted to accused Nos. 2 and 3 was cancelled by the learned Magistrate and impeaching the veracity of the findings entered by the trial court while disallowing the prayer to cancel the bail granted to the 1 ^st accused on finding violation of bail conditions, the learned counsel for the defacto complainant argued that in paragraph No.12 of Annexure. 7 order in Crl.M.C. No.5631 of 2022 itself, the learned Magistrate found that the passport surrendered by the 1 ^st