The main legal point established in the judgment is the consideration of bail based on the nature of allegations, evidence, and the valuable right of personal liberty, as well as the principle of not disbelieving a person to be innocent unless held guilty.

JUDGMENT :

VIKAS KUNVAR SRIVASTAV, J.

1. Called on. Learned counsel Sri Rajat Pratap Singh, Advocate appeared physically in hearing of the Crl. Misc. Bail Application No. 2046 of 2021. Learned Additional Government Advocate Sri Ravish Chandra Mishra, Advocate for and on behalf of the State is also present.

2. The present bail application is moved on behalf of the accused-applicant-Virendra Singh, involved in Case Crime No. 397 of 2020, under Section 306 IPC, registered at Police Station Behta Gokul, District Hardoi.

3. The occasion to present the bail application before this Court has arisen on rejection of first bail plea before the Ist Additional Sessions Judge, Hardoi on 18.12.2020.

4. Counter and rejoinder affidavit in the matter have duly been exchanged between the contesting parties. The case is ripe for hearing.

5. Heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the First Information Report, statements on record and other materials as well as counter affidavit filed by the learned AGA.

6. Briefly stating the case emerging from the First Information Report lodged by Smt. Rajrani w/o late Jaswant Singh with regard to her daughter Sanju Devi married to accused-applicant Virendra that on 21.10.2020 the complainant on information of unnatural death of her daughter when went to the house of in-laws of the deceased, she found her daughter hanging from ceiling.

7. Learned counsel submits that the accused-applicant is languishing in jail since 15.11.2020 for no fault of him. The present accused-applicant has no role and involvement in the aforesaid unnatural death of his wife as complained of by her mother-in-law either by instigation and abatement to commit suicide or otherwise. In para 10 and 11 of the bail application he has submitted the explanation for committing suicide by the deceased, his wife Sanju Devi which is quoted hereunder:

"10. That by the passage of time, when the husband and in-laws of Arti Devi came to know about the aforesaid incident then they started extending threat to desert Arti Devi, giving divorce to her.

11. That due to the aforesaid reason, the deceased was very much frustrated and in the night of 20/21.10.2020, when the frustration of the deceased reached at its peak then she committed suicide by hanging in hut, situated outside the house of applicant."

8. The aforesaid explanation finding place in para 10 and 11 of the affidavit in support of the bail application finds corroboration from the post-mortem report on record wherein there is only ligature mark is reported in the ante-mortem injury seen on the body of the deceased. There is no other external injury showing any cruelty or otherwise. Further corroboration of the argument of the learned counsel that the wife of accused-applicant Sanju Devi committed suicide by reason of her daughter's bad luck and threats having been given by her in-laws when they came to knowledge about the fact of her elopement with some other person, namely, Pushpendra Rathore, earlier to marriage. An FIR to this effect was also lodged by the deceased against Pushpendra Rathore and other co-accused in Case Crime No. 317 of 2018, under Sections 363, 366 IPC and Sections 7/8 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. After recovering by the police from the accused Pushpendra Rathore, the girl was handed over to the complainant, the deceased in the present case who got her married but her in-laws when came to know about her earlier case, they became rude to the daughter of the deceased. Due to this situation, under the deep sympathy and pathetic, the wife of the present accused-applicant and mother of the daughter in hot water caused the suicide by her on 21.10.2020.

9. Learned AGA from the counter affidavit and other materials on record could not show the fact of active instigation for abatement on the part of the present accused-applicant to his wife, the deceased, Sanju Devi or any cruelty on his part under compulsion of which the deceased committed suicide.

10.