DEEPAK MADHAVRAO MANKAR Vs. THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application u/s 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure filed by the applicant/accused is for seeking pre-arrest bail. Pursuant to the FIR No.0104 of 2018 the applicant/accused is prosecuted for the offences punishable under sections 306, 506 r/w 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The offence of section 306 is non-bailable and hence, this application.

(2.) The deceased committed suicide on 2.6.2018. It is the case of the prosecution that the deceased Jitendra Jagtap was conducting business of real estate and was occupying an open space which is jointly owned by the applicant/accused and one Sudhir Karnataki. There were tenants and other constructions on the said land and the deceased was managing the said property and trying to settle the matter with a view to obtain clear vacant land for the applicant/accused. The applicant/accused and Sudhir Karnataki have allowed him to use and occupy the said premises i.e., 481, Rastapeth, Pune. It is the case of the prosecution that prior to 2 to 3 months from the incident of the suicide, the deceased was pressurised by the applicant/accused and other persons for handing over the possession of the said land to the applicant/accused. The applicant/accused and the other persons were continuously demanding accused to sign blank papers and to hand over possession of the land. However, the deceased resisted and demanded that he should be paid the maintainance expenses incurred by him and for work of looking after and preservation of the said plot and it was refused by the applicant/accused and Sudhir Karnataki. It is the case of the complainant that on 1.6.2018 at around 10pm, when his father returned home, he was looking nervous and scared. He informed the complainant that the applicant/accused and Sudhir Karnataki had meeting with him and they pressurised him to sign the blank papers and also threatened him that they would take forcible possession of the said land. The deceased did not dare to approach the police due to politically influential position of the applicant/accused.

(3.) Further chronology of the events given by the prosecution is as follows: As per the case of the prosecution on 28.5.2018, the deceased and his brother, a police constable, went to the applicant/accused to settle the matter amicably. At that time, they had verbal altercation and the applicant/accused threatened him of dire consequences. On 2.6.2018, the complainant went to the office of his father at Rastapeth to meet his father, at that time, one person Vinod Bhole and 6 to 7 unknown persons were present in the office. From the body language of those persons, the complainant could gather the gravity of threats given to his father earlier. The co-accused Vinod Bhole and the other persons made his father to sit in between them on a sofa and they started pressurising his father and then one of them who is a co-accused, told the complainant to take a last photograph of his father as alive on that place and from next day, his father would have any connection with the said plot and to keep that photograph as a memory. Thereafter, those persons left the site and then, his father also left the office with one Sachin Pawar. However, as the fatehr did return till afternoon, at 2 pm, the complainant phoned Sachin, who told him that he left deceased to some other bungalow. The complainant tried to contact his father on his cell phone. Somebody picked up the phone and he could identify that it was the voice of his father's friend, a rickshaw owner, namely, Shakti Raj, but he disconnected the phone and thereafter, he came to know that his father has committed suicide on a railway track. The said Shakti Raj, a rickshaw owner, informed the complainant that one envelope was handed over to him by the deceased before he committed suicide. So, the complainant opened that envelope and found the suicide note, signed and written by his father. Thereafter, his son immediately gave complaint to the police on 3.6.2018.