The court held that the serious nature of the alleged crime and substantial evidence against the applicants warranted the denial of bail at this stage.

ORDER :

SAMEER JAIN, J.

1. Before proceeding to consider the present applications seeking grant of bail to the accused-applicants, this Court considers it appropriate and necessary to delineate, at the outset, the factual matrix of the alleged incident, as has been placed on record and articulated by the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the accused-applicants across all the connected bail applications. Accordingly, the foundational facts, forming the substratum of the present case are summarised and set out hereinbelow:

1.1 That an FIR bearing No. 0100/2025 has been lodged on 31.03.2025 by the complainant, Shri Naresh Chaudhary, at Police Station Talera, District Bundi, alleging commission of offences punishable under Sections 103 (1) and 189(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 against the accused-applicants. The said FIR sets in motion the criminal law with respect to the incident forming the subject matter of the present bail applications.

1.2 That as per the recitals contained in the FIR, it is alleged that the victim-Lokendra, had been brutally assaulted by a group of individuals, the accused-applicants herein, at a location in the vicinity of Talera. It is further alleged that the victim sustained grievous injuries during the said assault and was profusely bleeding from his nose and ears. Despite being immediately taken for medical treatment, the victim is stated to have succumbed to his injuries during the course of treatment at a hospital in Kota.

1.3 That the FIR further narrates that at another point during the sequence of events, an altercation ensued between the parties wherein accused-applicants Bana and Prahalad are specifically alleged to have kicked and punched the victim, and thereafter inflicted a blow on the victim’s head with a knife, causing severe head injury.

1.4 That as per the post-mortem examination report placed on record, the cause of death has been opined to be “head injury – sufficient to cause death in the ordinary course of nature,” thereby prima facie corroborating the allegation of fatal head trauma sustained by the deceased.

In SBCRLMBA No. 9562/2025

2. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the applicants had submitted that the applicants are young individuals and are the sole earning members of their respective families, upon whom their dependents rely for subsistence. It was urged that the continued incarceration of such individuals would cause irreparable hardship to their families and would not serve any fruitful purpose in the facts of the present case.

3. It was further contended that the applicants do not have any criminal antecedents and have maintained a clean record prior to the present incident and that their implication appears to be more a consequence of suspicion and group rivalry than of their actual involvement in the alleged offence.

4. Learned counsel had also pointed out that the complainant, Shri Naresh Chaudhary, was admittedly not an eye-witness to the occurrence in question. Instead, one Dharamraj was present with the deceased-victim at the time of the incident and is the only competent person who could speak to the actual sequence of events. It was further urged that the allegations contained in the FIR are omnibus and general in nature, implicating a group of persons collectively without attributing any specific overt act to the present applicants. Learned counsel submitted that this lack of specific role assignment disentitles the prosecution to oppose bail merely on the basis of collective allegations, particularly when no material has been brought forth to demonstrate that the applicants individually participated in the assault leading to the death of the victim.

5.