Court No. - 65

Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 7929 of 2022

Appellant :- Jai Narain Yadav

Respondent :- State of U.P. and Another

Counsel for Appellant :- Karunesh Pratap Singh

Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Anand Swaroop Gautam

Hon'ble Sanjay Kumar Pachori,J.

Heard Shri Karunesh Pratap Singh, learned counsel for the

appellant, Shri Ravindra Kumar Singh, learned A.G.A. for the

State, Shri Anand Swaroop Gautam, learned counsel for the

second respondent and perused the material on record.

The present criminal appeal under Section 14-A(2) Scheduled

Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has

been filed by the appellant Jai Narain Yadav to set aside the

impugned order dated 13.9.2022, whereby the Special Judge

(SC/ST Act), Gorakhpur has rejected the bail application No.

4751 of 2022 of the appellants moved by them in Case Crime

No. 291 of 2022, under Sections 147, 149, 323, 504, 506, IPC

and Section 3(1)(da) and 3(1)(dha) of SC/ST Act, Police Station

Jhangaha, District Gorakhpur.

Learned counsel for the appellant submits that the appellant is

innocent and has been falsely implicated in the present case due

to ulterior motive. It is further submitted that the appellant is 72

years old person. It is further submitted that as per allegation of

FIR, which was lodged against the appellant, six other named

persons and six unknown persons, general allegation of

committing marpeet has been assigned against the appellant. No

specific role or involvement has been attributed to the present

appellant. It is further submitted that there is no medical report

of the injured persons. It is further submitted that the appellant

has previous criminal history of seven cases, which are related

to year 1979, 1993, 2008, 2011 and 2012. Out of seven cases, in

three cases the appellant has been acquitted, one case under

U.P.Z.A. & L.R. Act has been stayed by this Court and in one

case he has been exonerated by the police. It is further

submitted that the appellant is languishing in jail since

10.8.2022.

It is further submitted that there is no possibility of the

appellants of fleeing away after being released on bail or

tampering with the witnesses. In case the appellant is enlarged

on bail, he shall not misuse the liberty of bail.

Per contra, learned A.G.A. and learned counsel for the second

respondent have supported the order passed by the Special

Judge and vehemently opposed the prayer for grant of bail to

the applicants. But they could not point out any material to the

contrary. They further submit that in case the applicant is

released on bail, he will again indulge in similar activities and

will misuse the liberty of bail.

After considering the facts of the present case it prima facie

appears that;

(a) General allegation of committing marpeet has been assigned

to the appellant;

(b) No specific role or involvement has been attributed to the

present appellant;

(c) There is no medical report of the injured persons;

It is a settled law that while granting bail, the court has to keep

in mind the nature of accusation, the nature of the evidence in

support thereof, the severity of the punishment which

conviction will entail, the character of the accused, the

circumstances which are peculiar to the accused, his role and

involvement in the offence, his involvement in other cases and

reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being tampered with.

Taking into account the totality of facts and keeping in mind,

the ratio of the Apex Court's judgment in the case of State of

Rajasthan v. Balchand @ Baliay (1977) 4 SCC 308,

Gudikanti Narasimhulu And Ors., v. Public Prosecutor,

High Court Of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1978 SC 429, Ram

Govind Upadhyay v. Sudarshan Singh & Ors., (2002) 3 SCC

598, Prasanta Kumar Sarkar v. Ashis Chatterjee & Anr.,

(2010) 14 SCC 496 and Mahipal v. Rajesh Kumar & Anr.,

(2020) 2 SCC 118, the larger interest of the public/State and

other circ