DEVO ALIAS RAJENDRA Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard learned counsel for petitioner, learned Public Prosecutor for the State, learned counsel for the complainant and perused the relevant documents placed before me.

(2.) Contention of the learned counsel for petitioner is that even though petitioner was named in the first information report when originally charge sheet was filed against seven other co-accused persons, investigation against him was not kept pending under Section 73(8) Cr.P.C. No specific role has been assigned to him by the witnesses whose statements were recorded by the police at that time. Petitioner is in jail for last one month. Trial of the case is likely to take a long time. In the FIR, informant Sitaram attributed the fatal injuries to Jagmohan and Vasudev. Seven other co-accused persons namely; Omi @ Omprakash, Vasudev, Laxman @ Laccho, Kedarnath, Murari, Ramanlal and Prakash @ Omprakash went to trial and all of them have been acquitted on 25/2/2009 because not only informant Sitaram, who is uncle of the deceased did not support the prosecution case but also when he was examined as PW5, father of deceased PW2 Ramesh and his brother PW3 Raju @ Rajendra have also not supported the prosecution case and have been declared hostile. Petitioner is in jail for last six months and fresh trial may take a long time because some accused are still absconding.

(3.) Learned counsel for the complainant has opposed the bail application and submitted that some of the witnesses whose supplementary statements were recorded in investigation were not produced before the court and when trial of the above seven co-accused persons was conducted. They have given a different version of the incident because they have in their police statements assigned some specific role to the petitioner and katta has been recovered at his instance.