SURJIT KAUR Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Prayer in both these petitions is for grant of regular bail to petitioners Surjit Kaur and Puneet Kumar Garg, in FIR No.29 dtd. 3/2/2018 under Ss. 302, 364, 201, 404, 120-B, 34 IPC, registered at Police Station Tripuri, District Patiala.

(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioners have submitted that as per allegations in the FIR, registered on the basis of statement of Vikramjit Singh Sandhu, he is residing in Canada and his mother Harbhajan Kaur is living in Chandigarh and they are having a Showroom No.22, where her mother was oftenly visiting and staying in its upper part. On 25/1/2018, she had come to Patiala and on 27/1/2018, his maternal aunt Jasvir Kaur informed me on phone that she had left his mother Harbhajan Kaur at Kohli Sweets Chowk, Tripri, from where an unknown lady asked her to sit on her Activa and took away. Thereafter, he was calling his mother, but the mobile phone was found switched off and initially, FIR was registered under Sec. 365 IPC. It is further submitted that during the investigation, petitioners Surjit Kaur and Puneet Kumar Garg were arrested and dead body along with other articles were recovered.

(3.) Learned counsel for petitioner Surjit Kaur submits that it is case of the prosecution that co-accused Puneet Kumar Garg (petitioner in CRM-M-8886-2022) was tenant of Harbhajan Kaur and landlord-tenant dispute was pending before the Court and no motive is attributed towards the petitioner, except that she helped him in committing the offence. It is further submitted that the petitioner is in custody for the last 04 years, 01 month and 17 days and trial is still at the stage of recording the prosecution evidence, as out of total 33, only 10 PWs have been examined, including all the material witnesses and 15 PWs are yet to be examined; majority of them are official witnesses. Learned counsel has further submitted that the petitioner is suffering from gynecologic problems and has relied upon report of the Medical Officer, Central Jail, Patiala dtd. 29/6/2020 and another report of the Medical Officer, Central Jail, Patiala dtd. 24/9/2020 reads as under: -