RAJEEV JOSHI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Prayer in this petition is for grant of regular bail in FIR No.201 dtd. 31/7/2020 under Ss. 302, 328, 120-B IPC read with Sec. 61/1/14 of Excise Act, registered at Police Station City Batala, Police District Batala.

(2.) Learned senior counsel for the petitioner, at the very outset, submits that the petitioner is aged about 54 years and he is dealing in the business of paints, thinner and other industrial chemicals like varnishes etc. through the firm by the name of M/s R.C. Joshi and Company. Learned senior counsel has referred to GST Registration Certificate as well as No Objection Certificate issued by the Additional District Magistrate, Ludhiana permitting the petitioner to do the said business. It is further submitted that the petitioner has no such history of involvement in criminal case and his family is doing the aforesaid business for the last about 40 years. It is also submitted that as many as six FIRs have been registered on account of hooch tragedy, which occurred in Punjab and many persons have died. Learned senior counsel has referred to the FIR, which was registered by the police after recording the statement of Toti @ Buta Ram and Bhupinder Kumar that some persons named in the FIR have consumed poisonous liquor or alcohol supplied by some unknown persons and have died. The FIR was initially registered under Ss. 304, 320 IPC read with Sec. 61/1/14 of Punjab Excise Act. During the course of investigation, the police added offence under Sec. 302 IPC.

(3.) Learned senior counsel has argued that it is case of the prosecution that legal heirs of the deceased persons informed the Investigating Officer at the first instance that spurious liquor, which was consumed by deceased persons, was supplied by Darshana Rani, Rajan, Triveni Chohan, Johny, Dharminder, Heera, Harpreet Singh @ Happy, Badal, Gurbinder Singh and George. Thereafter, samples of recovered illicit liquor were sent to FSL/Chemical Examiner and on receiving the report, offence under Sec. 302 IPC was added. It is further submitted that during the investigation, the police recorded the sequence of disclosure statements. Thereafter, the police arrested accused George, Satnam Singh @ Satta, Shamsher Singh @ Shera and Harjeet Singh and recorded their disclosure statements and they nominated Avtar Singh, Ravinder Singh and Rajeev Joshi as accused in this case and the petitioner was arrested on 3/8/2020. It is also submitted that only evidence, which has come against the petitioner is either the disclosure of his co-accused or his own disclosure statement, which was recorded by the police during the custodial investigation, in which it is stated that he had sold three drums of methyl alcohol to one Ravinder for a sum of Rs.75,000.00 and delivery was taken in a small commercial vehicle. It is further submitted that in pursuance to the disclosure of either of the co-accused or as per the own disclosure of the petitioner, no further recovery was effected from the petitioner, therefore, it will be a debatable issue whether such disclosure is admissible in evidence against the petitioner.