SACHIN PRAKASH JAVALKAR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The applicant is charge-sheeted under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (for short,"MCOC Act") and came to be arrested on 29 th April, 2018. His application filed before the Special Court constituted for dealing with offence under MCOC Act came to be rejected on 11th December, 2018. This has constrained him to move this Court seeking his release on bail.

(2.) Heard Ms.Sana Raees Khan for the applicant. She would submit that the applicant has not committed any offence as alleged and has been falsely implicated. She contend that he is not part of the organised criminal gang and in fact the role assigned to him in the charge-sheet is very limited and it is not the case of the prosecution that he was present on the spot at the time when the alleged crime took place nor there are any allegations of conspiracy levelled against him. He can be at the most implicated by taking recourse of Section 212 of IPC i.e. harbouring the offender. He had no knowledge that the persons for whom he had arranged a stay for, are the accused persons and they have committed crime. The learned counsel would also submit that the applicant is permanent resident of the address given and there is no chance of his absconding or jumping over the bail. The learned APP, on the other hand, strongly opposed the application and submit that the applicant is responsible for harbouring the accused persons and has financially assisted the organised crime syndicate and, therefore, offence under Section 3 (3) of MCOC Act has been made out and considering the nature of his involvement and the gravity of offence, since the Act of 1999 intend to prevent or control the organised crime and to deal with the criminal activity of organised crime syndicate or gang, the prosecution has compiled reliable evidence against the present applicant, which do not deserve his release on bail.

(3.) With the assistance of the learned counsel for the parties, I have perused the material placed on record in the form of charge-sheet. The prosecution case is that the informant one Sanesh Ashok Kurwat has lodged the complaint alleging that on 15 th September, 2017 at about 15.30 hrs, his brother Santosh alongwith Vijay and Nadeem Maniyar were having tea in front of Sadhu Wasvani Garden, Pimpri, Pune and at that time, on account of previous enmity, Sachin Nadhe, Vicky Sutar, Vijay Nadhe, Avinash Nadhe and other unknown 4 to 5 persons arrived at the spot with deadly weapons i.e. sickles and pistols and created a reign of terror in the locality. They fired at the brother of the informant and attempted to kill him. This resulted in registration of C.R.No.531 of 2017 invoking Sections 307 , 143 , 147 , 148 , 149 , 120-B , 212 , 506 , 201 of IPC read with Sections 3(25) , 4(25) , 5(1)(a)(b) , 27 of the Arms Act and Section 37(1) with Section 135 of the Maharashtra Police Act alongwith Sections 3 , 7 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. During the course of investigation, police arrested co-accused- Vicky Sutar and during the interrogation, he disclosed that the said offence is committed by him alongwith other co-accused. He also disclosed the name of the applicant, who was absconding. Total ten accused persons came to be arrested in the present crime, including one juvenile accused. During the course of investigation, the fire arms, sickles and vehicles used in the crime have been seized at the instance of co-accused and statements of several witnesses came to be recorded. Charge- sheet came to be filed against accused Nos.1 to 9 and the present applicant alongwith one Chetan Walke was shown as absconding accused.