The court ruled bail should be granted when trial delays infringe on the right to personal liberty, provided conditions to prevent tampering with evidence are set.

JUDGMENT :

S.K. SAHOO, J.

1. This is the third successive bail application of the petitioner Roshan @ Babloo Yadav @ Bablu Yadav in connection with CBI, Bhubaneswar F.I.R. No. RC0152009A0023 dated 30.09.2009 corresponding to SPE Case No. 01 of 2011 pending in the Court of learned Special C.J.M. (C.B.I.), Bhubaneswar in which charge sheet has been submitted against the petitioner for the offences under sections 420, 467, 468, read with section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code.

2. The bail application of the petitioner has been rejected by the learned Addl. Sessions Judge -cum- Special Judge, C.B.I. Court No.I, Bhubaneswar in BLAPL No.355 of 2022 vide order dated 08.03.2022.

3. The first bail application of the petitioner in BLAPL No. 2747 of 2019 was rejected as per order dated 24.06.2019 with the following observations:-

“After bestowing my anxious consideration to weigh and analyse the materials available on record with utmost care and caution, the nature and gravity of the accusation, the manner in which the unemployed persons were cheated with assurance of providing them job in the Railway Department, the punishment prescribed for the offences under which charge sheet has been submitted, prima facie availability of supporting materials to establish such accusation, the role played by the petitioner in the entire episode, the impact of such offences on the society, the absconding of the petitioner for about eight years after submission of charge sheet against him, I am of the humble view that merely because some of the co-accused persons have been released on bail, the petitioner cannot claim parity with them.”

4. The petitioner again approached this Court for bail for the second time in BLAPL No.2293 of 2020 and while rejecting the application for bail as per order dated 15.01.2021, this Court made the following observations:-

”In view of the submission of the learned counsel for the respective parties and taking into account the materials available on record and the nature and gravity of accusation, while not inclining to release the petitioner on bail on merit, but taking into account the period of detention of the petitioner in judicial custody and the slow progress of the case so far and the fact that sixty four witnesses are yet to be examined, I direct the learned trial Court to expedite the trial and take all possible steps to proceed with the trial on day-to-day basis keeping in view section 309 of Cr.P.C. Since the learned trial Court is also dealing with other cases for which it may not be possible on its part to give more time to this particular case, the case should be taken up during a particular time slot on each day. If the defence counsel after cross-examining a prosecution witness for some time files a petition for time to defer the cross examination, the learned trial Court shall not grant adjournment by giving long dates without realizing the inconvenience likely to be faced by the witnesses in attending the Court again and again. The trial Court shall do well to conclude the trial within a period of one year from the date of receipt of the copy of this order, if there is no other impediment.”

5. The aforesaid order dated 15.01.2021 was confirmed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court vide order dated 11.12.2021 passed in Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No.9437 of 2021.

6. When the matter was taken up on 22.01.2024, Mr. R.R. Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner made a submission that in spite of the order dated 15.01.2021 passed in BLAPL No.2293 of 2020, in the trial Court, out of sixty six charge sheet witnesses, only nineteen witnesses have been examined so far and he had supplied the