Anticipatory bail can be granted even after prior custody if custodial interrogation is not justified, balancing individual rights with the necessity of a fair trial.

JUDGMENT

Anoop Chitkara, J.

The petitioner apprehending arrest in the FIR captioned above has come up before this Court by filing second petition under Section 438 CrPC seeking anticipatory bail. Earlier also, the petitioner had come up before this Court by filing a petition seeking anticipatory bail, but the same was disposed of as withdrawn, as the petitioner was already arrested by the Enforcement Directorate.

2. In paragraph 20 of the bail application, the accused declares that except the present FIR and the ED complaint arising out of present FIR, in which the petitioner is already on bail, the petitioner has no criminal antecedents. The details of the complaint case read as under:-

3. Facts of the case are being extracted from the reply filed by the State by way of affidavit of the concerned DySP, which read as under:-

"2. That a Case FIR No. 13 dated 02.11.2020, under section 409, 420, 465, 466, 467, 471, 120-B IPC, 7, 7-A, Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 as amended by Prevention of Corruption Act, 2018, Police Station Vigilance Bureau, Flying Squad-1, Punjab at Mohali was registered after conducting a detailed enquiry in which it was found that the revenue officials in connivance with other accused persons entered a mutation no. 1767 dated 05.09.2016 and transferred Shamlat Land of Village Soonk in favour of many persons who were not khewatdars of that village. They have also illegally transferred excess land/share in favour of many persons beyond their eligibility. This case was registered against the following accused persons:-

1. xx xx xx xx xx xx

11. xx xx xx xx xx xx

3. That during investigation, following 9 persons were nominated as accused in this case:-

1. xx xx xx xx xx

3. Hartej Singh@ Gurtej Singh S/o Surinder Singh, R/o village Soonk, tehsil Kharar, Distt. SAS Nagar(The present petitioner).

9. xx xx xx xx xx"

4. That during the investigation of this case it has been established that mutation no. 1767 dated 05.09.2016 was registered, in which about 117 Acre Shamlat Land of Village Soonk was wrongfully entered, mentioning excess share to some Khewatdars or mentioning shares to the persons who were not the Khewatdars/residents of the village. It was also established during investigation that heavy amount of bribe was distributed for entering/sanctioning of this mutation and further distributing land shares in excess to the persons and even to the persons who were not Khewatdar/Residents of the village. Out of this 117 Acres land, about 103 Acres land has further been sold to the different buyers directly by the khewatdars or on the basis of GPA/Sub- GPA's. Out of this 103 Acres land, sold more than 22 Acres of land than the increased shares were found to have been sold, (thus, 22 Acres land exists nowhere). The revenue record pertaining to Shamlat land in question like registers/vasikas/GPAS/Sub- GPAs were taken on record during the investigation."

4. Petitioner's counsel submits that offences alleged against the petitioner are predicate offences and not scheduled offences which have been registered by the Enforcement Directorate. Moreover, the petitioner has remained in custody for 3 months and at that time, the State police did not seek his custodial interrogation. Now, after spending three months in jail, the petitioner has come back and now again, they want to take his custody, which would serve no purpose whatsoever. He has further submitted that the petitioner is entitled to seek parity with co-accused Balbir Singh, who has already been granted anticipatory bail by this Court vide order dated 1.11.2021