The grant of bail must consider the cumulative effect of various circumstances justifying the grant or refusal of bail, and stringent conditions can be imposed to prevent influencing the investigation and intimidating witnesses.

JUDGMENT

Anoop Chitkara, J.

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

2. The petition is silent about criminal history although as per status report the accused has following criminal antecedents.

 3. The petitioner's husband was the Chief Managing Director and her brother-in- law was Managing Director of Solarway Marketing India Private Limited. Petitioner was involved in the management of the Company. All of them allegedly swindled a huge sum of Rs. 79,02,250/- out of which Rs. 30,05,682/- is yet to be recovered, as per the status report dated 11-3-2021.

4. Ld. Counsel for the petitioner contends that the pre-trial incarceration would cause an irreversible 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 is a woman, who is in custody since 09-11-2020. The amount recovered is 40 lakh around and remaining Rs. 30 lacs, which was usurped by three directors. Given the accused's age and other factors peculiar to this case, it may be appropriate to afford the petitioner a final opportunity to course-correct. Thus, the previous criminal history of the petitioner is not being considered strictly at this stage as a factor for denying bail.

9. In Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia v State of Punjab, 1980 (2) SCC 565, (Para 30), a Constitutional Bench of Supreme Court held that the bail decision must enter the cumulative effect of the variety of circumstances justifying the grant or refusal of bail. In Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v Rajesh Ranjan @ Pappu Yadav, 2005