ORDER :

SANJAY KUMAR GUPTA, J.

1. Petitioners, who are under trial in case FIR No. 65/2017 for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 302/34 RPC the trial of which is pending before the learned Principal Sessions Judge Reasi, have filed the present application for grant of bail on the ground that the prosecution has cited as many as 20 witnesses and out of 20 witnesses, 17 witnesses have been recorded by the court below and remaining witnesses are police personnel whose statements are not sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused; that the maximum number of witnesses have turned hostile and have not supported the prosecution case before the court below; that the prosecution witnesses including father, mother and brothers of the deceased have turned hostile and have not supported the prosecution case. Even child (minor) witness namely Mansa Devi has not supported the prosecution case. It has further been stated that the other circumstantial evidence including Mohd. Manzoor, Balbir Singh, Raghu Nath Singh, Darshna Devi, Rita Devi and Kailash Chand have also turned hostile.

2. The State has filed objections wherein it has been stated that accused are facing trial in murder case so they are not entitled to bail; that offence is heinous and carries serious punishment; that the court below has rightly rejected the bail.

3. The relevant para of the order of court below reads as under:

"I have gone through evidence recorded by the prosecution, statements admitted by defence and evidence yet to be produced by the prosecution. This court is conscious of the proposition of law that the court cannot discuss the merits or demerits of the prosecution case while dealing with bail application. It is settled preposition of law that real question is whether there is a reasonable ground for believing that a person is guilty of offence depends upon what evidence is offered by the prosecution to prove the charge against him. While reaching such conclusion the court must have to consider the nature and character of the evidence against him.

While considering all what has been discussed herein above, it is necessary for the court, for exercising discretion of bail, to see whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that a person is guilty of offence punishable with death or life imprisonment, the court will not grant bail to such a person. The scrutiny of evidence needs to be done keeping in mind the distinction between the standard to be adopted for evaluating the evidence for proving the charge and that for examining the evidence for limited purpose of drawing prima facie opinion for releasing the accused on bail. In order to come to the conclusion that a person is guilty the court must consider the nature and character of the evidence, and in case, on consideration of such evidence, the court prima facie comes to the conclusion that the evidence against the accused person is not such that he has committed offence, then, in the normal course said person is entitled to bail. In the present case, there is no dispute that the accused have been charged for the offences punishable under Sections 302/34 RPC. In this case as already discussed that the case is based mostly on the disclosure statement of the accused and recovery of the weapon of offence thereafter. One of the witness to the said disclosure and recovery has been recorded who has deposed before a Magistrate under Section 164-A of the Cr.P.C that accused disclosed in his presence about killing of the deceased and the weapon of offence were recovered thereafter and the said witness during his statement before the court he admitted the contents of the statement made before Magistrate under Section 164-A of the Cr.P.C to be true and correct, other parts of his statement are not incriminating against accused. Another witness to the disclosure made by the accused persons and recovery thereafter, is yet to be examined and also other witnesses including I.O are yet to be examined.