The court emphasized the balance between the gravity of the offence and the accused's right to liberty, allowing bail due to lengthy trial and similar circumstances of co-accused.

Order :

1. The instant second bail application has been preferred under Section 439 Cr.P.C. on behalf of the accused-petitioner. The accused-petitioner has been arrested in connection with FIR No.254/2020 registered at Police Station Nokha, District Bikaner for the offence(s) under Sections 302, 307, 341, 323, 147, 148, 149 and 427 of IPC.

2. Learned Senior counsel for the accused-petitioner submits that the accused-petitioner has falsely been implicated in the case. He submits that the first bail application of the accused-petitioner was dismissed by this Court vide order dated 29.11.2023 considering the fact that the bail application of other co-accused Prahalad Ram was rejected by the co-ordinate Bench of this Court vide order dated 22.11.2022. He submits that the allegation levelled against the present accused-petitioner and co-accused Prahalad Ram are identical. It is alleged against the present accused-petitioner that he along with other co-accused assaulted Jitender Singh resulting into his death. The prosecution also alleges Rajendra Singh as an eye-witness to the incident. The bail application of the other co-accused Prahalad Ram was considered by the co-ordinate Bench and after perusing the statement of star witness Rajendra Singh the Court while granting bail to the co- accused Prahalad Ram observed that the injuries sustained to deceased were found to be caused by blunt weapon as Prahalad Ram was having a Barchi in his hand. It is also contended that the statement of eye-witness PW-1 Jitendra Singh is not trustworthy and reliable. PW-1 Jitendra Singh was not present at the time of occurrence and in his cross-examination he has admitted that he reached at the place of occurrence when the incident had already been occurred. It is also contended that the allegation levelled against the present accused-petitioner is not specific rather omnibus in nature and the other eye-witness PW-18 Vikram Singh though in his Court statement has stated that the accused- petitioner along with other co-accused were present at the place of occurrence but his statement was recorded after a delay of two months by the Investigating Agency. The FIR was lodged on 18.07.2020 whereas his statement was recorded on 27.09.2020, thus it shows that eye-witness PW-18 was later on introduced by the complainant party, the other witnesses namely PW-4 Mukesh Das, PW-5 Manoj, PW-6 Sahi Ram, PW-7 Poonam Das, PW-8 Prahalad, PW-11 Mahesh and PW-12 Sharwan Kumar have been declared hostile by the trial Court. It is also contended that the other co-accused Vinod, Rakesh, Ranjeet Singh and Jagdish have already been enlarged on bail by Co-ordinate Benches of this Court vide orders dated 26.11.2021, 21.10.2022 and 17.11.2022 respectively. The prosecution has come with the case that there was a political rivalry between deceased and Kundan Ramawat, the accused-petitioner was not having any motive to cause death of the deceased. It is also contended that out of 48 listed witnesses, only 18 have been examined. The accused-petitioner is in custody since 25.09.2020 and trial/investigation of the case will take considerable time, therefore, the second bail application of the accused-petitioner may be allowed.

3. Learned Public Prosecutor vehemently opposed the second bail application and contended that the first bail application of the accused-petitioner was dismissed by this Court, considering the rejection of bail application of other co-accused Prahalad Ram. It is vehemently put forth by learned Public Prosecutor that when the bail application of co-accused Prahalad Ram was allowed by the Co-ordinate Bench of this Court at that time, the statement of PW- 18 Vikram Singh was not placed before the Court. PW-18 in his examined in chief has categorically stated that the accused- petitioner along with other co-accused assaulted the deceased and were armed, therefore, considering the gravity of offence, the bail application of the accused-petitioner deserves to be dismissed.