ABDUL MAJEED BHAT Vs. STATE OF J&K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Learned 1st Additional Sessions Judge, Baramulla, has declined to grant bail in favour of the petitioner herein in terms of order dated 29.12.2017, passed in applications, three in number (filed by various accused), referred in the petition as Annexure-PA. The petitioner, in view of the same, has filed the instant bail application wherein he has projected his case for being entitled to bail on the grounds, precisely, extracted below:

(2.) In the reply/objections filed on behalf of the respondent, prayer has been made for dismissal of the application by putting forth that there is credible and cogent evidence available regarding involvement of the petitioner in the commission of crime; the petitioner is involved in heinous crime which is rarest of rare one and since the petitioner is still under trial, in the event of bail in favour of the petitioner, there is every possibility that the petitioner will influence the witnesses and that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation against the accused is prima facie true.

(3.) Heard learned counsel for the parties. Learned counsel for the petitioner has taken reliance on various judgments including Amar Singh Ramjibhai Barot v. State of Gujarat, ((2005) 7 SCC 550) , Sanjay Chandra v. Central Bureau of Investigation (AIR 2012 SC 830) and Vinod son of Satyanarayan Lohiya v. The State of Maharashtra (1996(1) Bom. CR 483) , and contended that the petitioner is entitled to bail. It is being emphatically contended that the mischief of Section 37 of the NDPS Act being applicable to the case, it would have been in the ends of justice to admit the petitioner to bail. It is also his plea that the learned 1st Additional Sessions Judge having observed in the order, in terms of which his bail application was rejected, that the quantity involved was intermediate and commercial, the petitioner could be permitted to be incarcerated in jail. The petitioner, admittedly, having been arrested on 08.10.2017 and continues to languish in the jail without any progress in trial. Furthermore, according to him, one of the persons, referred in the First Information Report, has been admitted to bail by a Coordinate Bench of this Court in terms of order passed on 7th of April, 2018, the petitioner, on the application of principle of parity, is to be granted same treatment. According to learned counsel for the petitioner, investigating agency though having projected that the accused referred in the First Information Report were arrested at the venue but the recoveries are attributed individually. Thus the common intention or conspiracy cannot be ascribed to the petitioner so as to bracket the substance alleged to have been recovered from each of them a single one.