BACHCHU LAL Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a bail application in case of triple murder. The petitioners Bachchu Lal and his servant Debi Dayal along with thirty others were sent up by the Kamlapur police and the case is at present pending inquiry in the Court of a Judicial Magistrate, Sitapur, under Chap. XVIII, Criminal P. C. The prosecution witnesses have been examined and the remaining formalities have still to be gone through.

(2.) The applicants were, we understand, not named in the first information report or during the course of the police investigation. This was presumably because their identity was not known to the complainant and the prosecution witnesses. They were arrested in the third week of September, 1950, and identified at a jail parade held in the District Jail, Sitapur, on 10-10-1950. Out of eighteen witnesses who were seat up nine spotted Bachchu Lal and three pointed to Debi Dayal. Both these persons moved the learned Sessions Judge Sitapur, for bail. The offence which the petitioners were alleged to have committed were punishable with death or transportation for life and Section 497, Criminal P. C., therefore, did not apply. The Court acting under Section 498, Criminal P. C. admitted both Bachchu Lal and Debi Dayal to bail and released them on 12-10-1950, on their furnishing two sureties each in sums of Rs. 1,000. Subsequently, however, the order was cancelled by the successor of the learned Judge on 16-2-1951, on an application made by the prosecution alleging that the two accused were actively tampering with and intimidating the prosecution witnesses. Bachchu Lal and Debi Dayal preferred their application in this Court on 22 2-1951. On the matter bung laid before our brother V. Bhargava J., some questions of law of general importance were raised and since the learned Judge thought they deserved a careful consideration by two Judges he referred the case to a Division Bench.

(3.) Two points fall to be considered in this case; (1) Was the learned Sessions Judge, Sitapur, empowered to cancel the order of his predecessor admitting the petitioners to bail, and (2) Was the order otherwise unjustified.