Procedural requirements in criminal law must be strictly followed; failure to read out a proclamation publicly invalidates the declaration of a proclaimed offender, irrespective of the offense's severity.

JUDGMENT :

ANOOP CHITKARA J.

FIR No. Dated Police Station Sections

1. The petitioner aggrieved by the order dated 04.03.2024 (Annexure P-2) on being declared as proclaimed offender in the FIR captioned above, has come up before this Court, by filing the present petition under Section 528 BNSS 2023, seeking quashing of the same.

2. Petitioner’s ground for setting aside the proclamation order is that proclamation was not read out in the village publically as per Section 82(2)(1)(a) CrPC. In addition to this technical ground, other ground made by the petitioner is that petitioner does not have knowledge about registration of FIR and even they were not arrested, although they could have been arrested and the petitioner was not even aware about proclamation proceedings.

3. Counsel for the State opposes the present petition as well as bail filed by the petitioner. There is a judicial pronouncement which says that anticipatory bail is not maintainable when a person is a proclaimed person.

4. The offence in question is the most dangerous under any law i.e. murder.

5. Facts of the case are being taken from reply dated 25.03.2025, which reads as under:-

“Statement of Arman Singh Son of Amrik Singh resident of Thedi, District Fatehabad Sirsa, aged about 19 years, Mobile No.97283-xxxxx. Stated that I am a resident of the above said address and do agricultural work. Several years ago my maternal uncle (Massad) i.e. husband of mother's sister namely Gurmeet Singh Son of Kashmir Singh resident of Bhagsar, District Fazilka purchased four acres of land in Village Mandi Khurd, District Bathinda, where I used to go to explore the land with my masad Gurmeet Singh many times. Where many days ago, I and my masad Gurmeet Singh and my maternal aunt (Massi) Paramjit Kaur also went to see the fields at Mandi Khurd, where Jaswinder Singh Son of Mukand Singh of Mandi Khurd and his son Jagmohan Singh, brother-in-law of Jaswinder Singh resident of Rampura also came to the fields, they started saying to us that "we have two acres of land. leave our land, otherwise you will have to face dire consequences. If you enter in this land again in future, then we will not spare you, henceforth think carefully before entering this land." Just by saying this, they went away from the field by giving threats. Today 1, my massad Gurmeet Singh, my massi Paramjeet Kaur and my massi Kuljeet Kaur Wife of Makhtoor Singh resident of Shamsa Bhatti, Sirsa and Principal Singh Son of Malik Dutta resident of Dhani 400, Sirsa had come to see the land of village Mandi Khurd, where by arranging the labour, were getting uprooted the trees/plants of eucalyptus planted in the fields. Then at about 12.40 in the day, from the side of Village Kuttiwal a vehicle Bolero of white colour and three motorcycles. on which two persons were riding each, who had handles of taps, gandasis, rods and kirpan with them and six-seven persons alighted from the Bolero vehicle, all the persons started giving beatings to massi Paramjit Kaur and Kuljit Kaur with their respective arms, then I and my massad Gurmeet Singh and Principal, who were Standing in the nearby field, rushed to rescue them, from these persons Jaswinder Singh Son of Mukand Singh, who had rod, his son Jagmohan Singh, who had kirpan with him, residents of Mandi Khurd and brother-in-law of Jaswinder Singh resident of Rampura, who had the handle of tap with him, in the presence of us while we were rescuing, Jaswinder Singh, gave a forceful blow of the rod held in his hands to my massi Paramjit Kaur and the other per