IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that prolonged incarceration without trial is unjust, reinforcing the principle that bail is the norm in criminal proceedings.

JUDGMENT :

Mr. Kuldeep Tiwari, J.

The amenability of all these petitions for being decided through a common verdict originates from them being arising out of a common FIR, besides common relief(s) being yearned therein.

2. To be precise, in all these petitions, the petitioners seek the relief of them being enlarged on regular bail, in FIR No.03 dated 03.01.2023, under Sections 364-A, 370, 386, 120-B of the IPC, registered at P.S. Balongi, District S.A.S. Nagar

GIST OF THE FIR

3. The genesis of the present FIR is embodied in a statement made by one Sukhwinder Singh son of Amarjit Singh (hereinafter referred to as the ‘complainant’). Succinctly stated, the allegations against the petitioners and their co-accused are that, they have duped many gullible people on the pretext of sending them abroad and held them hostages in order to extort money from them. For ready reference, the relevant extract of complainant’s statement is extracted hereunder:-

“...I do agriculture work and that my uncle Late Dharam Singh and chacha Paramjit Singh s/o Ami Singh is there. My uncle/Taya’s son Kushalpal is there, his son namely Ashutosh Rana has done his 12th class and he used to do agriculture work. On 26.12.2022 Satish Kumar s/o Ajmer Singh r/o Tapriya Kandhola, P.S. Chamkaur Sahib Roopnagar called me that my brother Jagdish Singh has reached UAE via Indonesia through a person namely Sunny Thakur s/o Rattan Chand r/o BX 616 Kishanpura Jalandhar. Upon this, I told Satish Kumar that my nephew Ashutosh Rana also wants to go to UAE. Then Satish Kumar talked to my Nephew Ashutosh Rana and he sent him a ticket for Bali City Indonesia on 26.12.2022 and thereafter on 27.12.2022, my nephew went to the Bali City in Indonesia and before going he had taken 4000 dollars. My nephew Ashutosh Rana has reached Bali City in Indonesia. Then he gave me an intimation about his well being on 29.12.2022 through his phone number 7087202082 but now he gave me this message that he along with other persons have been kidnapped, the calls came to my number 98778 75095 and Sunny Kumar Thakur’s number 4915215988714 from phone number 6147732621 and 48794279158 and they were asking for ransom of 30 lakh rupees, they gave ICICI Bank A/C no. 631905015784 IFSC Code 0006319 and they asked me to pay the money in this account or in default they threatened to kill my nephew Ashutosh Rana, so we have deposited a sum of Rs. 3,50,000 in the account number. Now they are demanding more money. Now requisite action be taken against these persons who called through phone number 6147732621 and 4879427915 and the account holder of ICICI Bank A/C no. 631905015784 IFSC Code 000631...”

DETAILS OF INVESTIGATION

4. Upon notice(s) becoming issued on these petitions, the respondent-State filed separate status reports/replies, detailing therein the incriminatory material(s) collected by the investigating agency against the petitioners, besides detailing therein the role of petitioners and the manner in which the offence has been committed.

5. The record available before this Court reveals that, it surfaced during investigation that the accused were/are running a crime syndicate, inasmuch as, they allured aspiring innocent people to send them abroad, however, instead of sending them to actual abroad destinations, they used to send them to Indonesia, where one Sunny Kumar (brother of accused Sahil) and his allies used to kidnap them and extort huge sums of money from their parents. The illegally detained people were released only after receipt of ransom from their families.

6. In the present case, statements of two victims have been recorded, wherein, they have corroborated the allegations (supra). Moreover, a thorough investigation was conducted, which resulted in total 10 persons becoming arrayed as accused in the present FIR. Out of these 10 accused, 07 accused have been arrested, whereas, 03 accused are absconding.

7. What further emanates from the record is that, during investigation, gold articles weighing 2