Bail should be granted unless compelling reasons exist, such as risk of fleeing or tampering with evidence, with prior acquittals not counting against the petitioner.

JUDGMENT

Anoop Chitkara, J. 

The petitioner, incarcerated upon his 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. In paragraph 23 of the bail petition, the accused declares the following criminal antecedents:-

3. Petitioner's counsel prays for bail by imposing any stringent conditions and states that they would have no objection to the conditions, i.e., surrender of weapons. The petitioner further contends that the pre-trial incarceration would cause an irreversible injustice to the petitioner and family.

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

5. 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.

6. 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history, the prosecutions resulting in acquittal or discharge, or when Courts quashed the FIR; the prosecution stands withdrawn, or prosecution filed a closure report; cannot be included.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.

7. Perusal of the file shows that the main accused is Rishi who after being released on bail, demonstrated his success by gathering people and cars outside the victim's family and fired gun shots and also made a lot of noise. Petitioner's name was cropped up in disclosure statement and his case is different from the case of main accused-Rishi, the petitioner is entitled to bail. As per paragraph 18 of the petition, the petitioner is in custody since 13.04.2024. Given the nature of allegations, and role attributed to the petitioner, viz-a-viz pre-trial custody, coupled with the other factors peculiar to this case, there would be no justifiability for further pre-trial incarceration at this stage, subject to the compliance of terms and conditions mentioned in this order and criminal history is not being considered at this stage.

8. 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 (2) SCC 42, (Para 18) a three-member Bench of Supreme Court held that the persons accused of non-bailable offences are entitled to bail if the Court concerned concludes that the prosecution has failed to establish a