JUDGMENT :

Anoop Chitkara, J.

1. The petitioner incarcerated in the FIR captioned above, has come up before this Court under Section 439 CrPC seeking bail.

2. As per para 26 of the petition, petitioner is involved in one more case, which is as under:-

3. Petitioner's counsel prays for bail by imposing any stringent conditions and is also voluntarily agreeable to the condition that till the conclusion of the trial before the trial court, the petitioner shall keep only one mobile number, which is mentioned in AADHAR card, and within fifteen days of release from prison undertakes to disconnect all other mobile numbers. The petitioner contends that the further pre-trial incarceration would cause an irreversible injustice to the petitioner and family.

4. The state's counsel filed the reply dated 05.05.2024 and opposes the bail by making reference to para 5 of the reply, which reads as under:-

"a. That during the Vigilance Enguiry Balbir Singh @ Billu was called by way of summon(s) having no.2907 dated 13.10.2023 but he did not appear before the inguiry officer, which in itself shows that the petitioner was trying to run away at the initial stage itself. The petitioner never appeared before the inguiry officer and did not get recorded any statement.

b. That during the course of investigation of the case, it was proved that the petitioner has committed the offences with various individuals in connivance with other co-accused and have taken illegal financial benefits."

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. Prosecution's case is being taken from reply dated 05.05.2024, which reads as follows:-

"2. That at the initial stage a Source Report No. 37627 dated 06.09.2023 was received by the Vigilance Bureau, SAS Nagar, Mohali and on the basis of the same an Enguiry No. 15 dated 06.09.2023 was initiated by the Flying Sguad-1, Vigilance Bureau. That as per the allegations in the source report it was alleged that 1) Malvinder Singh Sidhu, 2) Kuldeep Singh, 3) Balbir Singh (present petitioner), in connivance with each other are procuring Schedule Caste/Schedule Tribe certificate(s) of various individuals, from different sources like their School, Work Place etc. That further, on the basis of this they are illegally, unlawfully extracting/asking for money from these innocent