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22-ba-629-22.odt

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY

NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR

Criminal Application (BA) No. 629 of 2022

Vivek S/o Pandurang Godbole

Versus

State of Maharashtra, through Police Station Officer,

Police Station Panchpaoli, Dist.Nagpur

Office Notes, Office Memoranda of

Court's or Judge's Order

Coram, appearances, Court's Orders

or directions and Registrar's order

Shri D.V.Chauhan, Advocate for the applicant.

Shri V.A. Thakare, APP for the State/non-applicant.

Shri Amol M.Jaltare, Advocate and Shri Aditya S.

Pande, Advocate assist to prosecution.

CORAM : ANIL S. KILOR, J.

DATED : 13^th JULY, 2022.

The applicant is seeking bail under Section

439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in Crime No.

666 of 2020 registered with Police Station Panchpaoli,

Nagpur for the offence punishable under Section 302

read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code.

2.

Shri Chauhan, learned counsel for the

applicant submits that there are total three accused

persons against whom the present First Information

Report was registered and out of three, two accused

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persons have already been released on bail. He,

therefore claims parity in this case.

3.

It is submitted that there are no criminal

antecedents to the discredit of the applicant.

4.

It is further submitted that there are three

eye witnesses and if their statements are considered

alongwith other material collected by the prosecution

like CCTV footage or postmortem report, identification

parade etc., there are many discrepancies, which creates

doubt about the veracity of the story of the prosecution.

5.

Shri Chauhan, learned counsel for the

applicant draws attention of this Court to the statement

of two witnesses namely Mangesh Ramesh Wani and

Krishna Jairam Durbude, recorded under Section 164 of

Code of Criminal Procedure and submits that these

statements do not support the case of the prosecution.

6.

Thus, in the backdrop of above referred

submissions made by the learned counsel for the

applicant, he prays for grant of bail to the applicant.

7.

On the other hand, Shri Thakare, learned

Additional Public Prosecutor strongly opposed the

present application and submits that while considering

the bail application of other two accused persons, this

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Court after seeing the CCTV footage, has observed the

role of the present applicant in the alleged offence.

Thus, he submits that there is incriminating material

against the applicant.

8.

It is further submitted that the above

referred observations of this Court, are sufficient to say

that the role of the applicant is not similar with the role

of two accused persons.

9.

It is submitted that the report dated 17^th

December, 2020 by Suraj Durgaprasad Tiwari

sufficiently depicts the motive of the applicant, behind

the murder of deceased. It is submitted that the

applicant is the main accused who with pre-meditation

committed the murder.

10.

Learned Additional Public Prosecutor has

further drawn attention of this Court to the CCTV

footage panchanama and therefrom he has pointed out

the overt act of the applicant, in the alleged crime.

11.

It is further pointed out from the

postmortem report that there were 38 injuries found on

the person of the deceased, which show that the

deceased was brutally murdered. Thus, learned

Additional Public Prosecutor submits that considering

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the seriousness of the offence and severity of the

punishment, this Court may not grant bail to the

applicant. In support of his submission, he has placed

reliance on a judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court

of India in the case of Virupakshappa Gouda and

another Vs. State of Karnataka and another¹

12.

Shri. Jaltare, learned counsel, who is

assisting the prosecution on behalf of the complainant,

reiterates the submission of the