The court's decision to grant bail with stringent conditions was based on the petitioner's criminal antecedents, the period of pre-trial incarceration, and the need to prevent influencing the investigation and tampering with evidence.

JUDGMENT

Anoop Chitkara, J.

1. The petitioner, incarcerating upon his arrest in the FIR captioned above, came up before this Court under Section 439 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) seeking bail.

2. In paragraph 14 of the bail application, the accused declares the following criminal antecedents:

3. Brief facts of the case are that the complainant informed the police that he is a car dealer. On 01.08.2021, he was showing his cars to the customers in the open space outside his shop. One Angrej Singh son of Jangir Singh had parked his Swift car for sale outside his shop. At about 5:00 P.M, two clean shaved young-men came and expressed their desire to buy a car. His son-Sharanjit Singh, who was helping in the business of the complainant gave keys to the customers and sat in the back seat of the car. After considerable time, when the son of the complainant alongwith the customers didn't come back, he got worried. About after half an hour, he received a phone call from his son that the said persons had thrown him out of the vehicle and snatched the car. Based on this information, the Police registered above-mentioned FIR. The police arrested five persons viz. Harpreet Singh @ Happy, Ajaypal Singh, Gursharanjit Singh @ Shunny-the present petitioner and Satnam Singh @ Sattu and Ranjit Singh @ Rana. It was revealed that as a part of conspiracy, Satnam Singh @ Sattu was having pistol and had threatened the son of the complainant and forced him to alight from the car.

4. Ld. Counsel for the petitioner contends that co-accused-Harpreet Singh has already been granted regular bail by this Court vide order dated 07.01.2022 passed in CRM-M-54314-2021. He further contends that incarceration before the proof of guilt would cause grave injustice to the petitioner and family.

5. While opposing the bail, Ld. counsel representing the State contends that given the criminal past, the accused is likely to indulge in crime once released on bail.

REASONING:

6. In Maulana Mohd Amir Rashadi v. State of U.P., (2012) 3 SCC 382, Hon'ble Supreme Court holds,

[10] It is not in dispute and highlighted that the second respondent is a sitting Member of Parliament facing several criminal cases. It is also not in dispute that most of the cases ended in acquittal for want of proper witnesses or pending trial. As observed by the High Court, merely on the basis of criminal antecedents, the claim of the second respondent cannot be rejected. In other words, it is the duty of the Court to find out the role of the accused in the case in which he has been charged and other circumstances such as possibility of fleeing away from the jurisdiction of the Court etc.

7. In Paramjeet Singh v. State of Punjab, CRM-M 50243 of 2021, this court observed,

While considering each bail petition of the accused with a criminal history, it throws an onerous responsibility upon the Courts to act judiciously with reasonableness because arbitrariness is the antithesis of law. The criminal history must be of cases where the accused was convicted, including the suspended sentences and all pending First Information Reports, wherein the bail petitioner stands arraigned as an accused. In reckoning the number of cases as criminal history, the prosecutions resulting in acquittal or discharge, or when Courts quashed the FIR; the prosecution stands withdrawn, or prosecution filed a closure report; cannot be included. Although crime is to be despised and not the criminal, yet for a recidivist, the contours of a playing field are marshy, and graver the criminal history, slushier the puddles.

8. The petitioner has already undergone around eleven months of pre-trial incarceration in this case. Given the period of incarceration already undergone, an