V. NITHIN KUMAR, S/O. N. VENKATESH Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA, BY KAMAKSHIPALYA POLICE STATION, REPRESENTED BY STATE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR, HIGH COURT OF KARNATAKA, BANGALORE-560001

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner herein has been arraigned as Accused No. 6 in C.C.No 16214/2011 on the file of the 5th ACMM, Bangalore. He and other accused persons have been accused of committing offences punishable under Sections 143, 147, 148, 302 r/w. 149 of IPC. The case of the prosecution in brief as alleged in the charge sheet is that, there was some monetary transaction between Accused No. 1 and the deceased Vishwa @ Vishwanath; in this regard, the deceased was demanding Accused No. 1 to pay Rs. 1,00,000/ - to him; since Accused No. 1 did not pay money, the deceased went near the house of the sister of Accused No. 1 on 10.02.2011 and quarreled with them and gave an ultimate date to Accused No. 1 to pay money and within that date, if he does not pay money, he would assault Accused No. 1 wherever he meets him; on coming to know of this, Accused No. 1 became furious and thereafter, with the help of Accused Nos. 2 to 7, he hatched a plan to eliminate the deceased; in furtherance of the said plan, Accused Nos. 1 to 7 along with juvenile offender Deepak@ Deepu, aged about 17 years, forming themselves into an unlawful assembly came near the house of the deceased at about 10.20 a.m. on 11.02.2011 and there Accused Nos. 1 and 2 went to the house of the deceased, brought him out of the house and while waiting with him on the road, Accused Nos. 1 to 3 stabbed the deceased with the dragger and assaulted him with the long and the juvenile offender assaulted the deceased with long; as a result, the said Vishwa @ Vishwanath sustained severe injuries to which he later succumbed at about 10.50 am in Gayathri Hospital, Vijayanagar. According to the prosecution, at the time of assault on the deceased, this petitioner and other accused persons were standing around the place of the incident.

(2.) DURING investigation, this petitioner was arrested and later subjected to judicial custody. His prayer for bail came to be rejected by the learned Sessions Judge, therefore, the petitioner is before this Court. It appears, on an earlier occasion, this petitioner had approached this Court in Criminal Petition No. 2122/2011 wherein this Court granted him bail for a limited period an the ground that he is required to appear for examination of Diploma in Information Science and he was directed to surrender before the Jurisdictional Court after examination on 20.07.2011. Accordingly, he surrendered himself before the Court on that day and sought for bail. However, his prayer for bail came to be rejected, therefore, once again he is before this Court.

(3.) IT is the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner that, even if the allegations made in the charge sheet against this petitioner are accepted at its face value, it does not prima facie indicate the involvement of this petitioner in the homicidal death of the deceased nor any overt act is attributed against him, therefore, he is entitled to be enlarged on bail. It is also his submission that Accused No. 4 -Kantharaj and Accused No. 5 -Sachin, who are similarly placed have already been granted bail by this Court, therefore, on the principles of parity, this petitioner is also entitled to be enlarged on bail.