PRADEEP SHANKARRAO WALVEKAR Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application filed by the petitioner for anticipatory bail under Section 438 of Cr. P.C. The petitioner who is a resident of Pune and is a Mechanical Engineer and Technocrat and runs industrial and manufacturing establishments at Pune was required by Vikhroli Police Station, Mumbai in connection with the crime registered under C.R. No. 225 of 1991. The petitioner is one of the five accused who were wanted by the police in connection with the aforesaid C.R. for the murder of one Kuber Pillai on 8/7/91 at Tagor Nagar, Vikhroli, Bombay. The Senior Inspector of Police, Vikhroli Police Station had issued witness summons to the petitioner on 29/12/1991 to appear before him on 2/1/92 to furnish information in respect of the above crime. Later on the accused including the petitioner were arrested on 23rd October 1992 in respect of the aforesaid crime under Section 302 read with Section 34 IPC read with sections 3, 25 and 27 of the Arms Act and Section 3(2) (5) of the TADA Act. The petitioner along with the other accused were produced before the learned Metropolitan Magistrate, Vikhroli on 24/10/1992. As the provisions of TADA were invoked against the accused, the learned Magistrate declined to pass remand order and directed the Police Officer of Vikhroli Police Station to take the accused before the competent authority for remand.

(2.) IT appears from the affidavit filed on behalf of the State that the petitioner was then produced before the learned Principal Judge of the Bombay City Civil Court and Sessions Court with the remand application and the learned Principal Judge refused to entertain the said application. Thereafter the prosecution sought legal opinion as the petitioner was released from the custody. It also appears that the petitioner had challenged the application of the provisions of TADA Act to him in Criminal Writ Petition No. 1551 of 1992 for a declaration that the TADA Act did not apply to him. However, the said petitioner came to be rejected by the Division Bench of this Court on 14/12/1992 and consequently the interim application for anticipatory bail made in that petition also came to be rejected in view of the fact that the petition came to be rejected on the ground that no bail could be granted in a case where provisions of TADA Act were applied.

(3.) THEREAFTER the matter came to be treated as ordinary criminal case under IPC and Cr. P.C. and those three accused came to be tried by the Sessions Court, Greater Bombay in Sessions Case No. 1024 of 1995. The learned Additional Sessions Judge who tried the case acquitted those three main accused by his judgment and order dated 2nd April 1996 holding that the prosecution had miserably failed to establish the guilt of the accused for the offence, inter alia, under Section 302 of IPC. The finding in that judgment is that the investigation agency was not even able to recover the weapon of assault at the instance of the accused under Section 27 of the Evidence Act and the prosecution was not able to connect the main accused with the murder of the deceased. It was further observed that the complainant who was the son of the deceased was not an eye-witness to the incident of the murder and was not present at the time and place where the incident had taken place. The said complainant had mentioned in the complaint that some unknown assailant committed the murder of his father with fire-arm and since he was not witness to the incident he had not given the description of the accused.