RAHUL GUPTA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON apprehension of their arrest, the petitioners have come to this Court for seeking pre-arrest bail by filing this application under Section 438 Cr.P.C. The matter relates to a matrimonial dispute between the members of Indian Civil Services. The petitioner No.1 is a member of Indian Civil Services of 2004 batch. Likewise the complainant is a member of 2005 batch. An introduction between the parties during the earlier period of training had seen the friendship blossom, which culminated into solemnization of marriage between the two on 17.09.2005, in accordance to Arya Samaj riots. The friendship between the parties, which had led to a tie of marriage within a short span of time, showed breaking of the same in an equally short period when a divorce petition came to be filed by the petitioner in the month of September, 2008 and the instant First Information Report came to be filed by the other side, simultaneously on 24.09.2008.

(2.) A brief reference to the factual position of the case is that an FIR came to be lodged by the informant Smt. Shalini Agarwal, at Mahila Thana, Jaipur City (South) on 24.09.2008 for the offence under Sections 498-A and 406 IPC. Crux of the allegation, made in the report, is that the informant had met with cruelty at the hands of the petitioners and that her dowry articles are with them. A list of articles was also annexed alongwith the First Information Report, which shows the articles given to the petitioners and also the one given to the informant by the parents of the petitioner. When the friendship of the parties had reached to its heights, that they got married on 17.09.2005, at Arya Samaj, Jaipur. Later on, a formal Sagai ceremony, according to Hindu rites, had taken place on 13.11.2005 at Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, Jaipur and marriage took place on 13.02.2006, in presence of the parents and relatives, at Ahmedabad. The petitioner No.1, who is a member of Indian Civil Sevices of 2004 batch, had been alloted Gujarat Cadre. The informant, who is a member of Indian Civil Services of 2005 batch had been alloted Jammu & Kashmir cadre. Later on, the cadre of the informant had been changed from State of Jammu & Kashmir to that of State of Gujarat, on 10.02.2006. The differences between the parties had arose around the period of September, 2008. Ultimately, the relations between the parties had broken, so much so, that the informant started living separately and had carried away the dowry articles from residence at Gujarat as well as from the Bank lockers.

(3.) I have given my anxious and thoughtful consideration to the submissions made by the counsel for the rival parties. The Honourable Supreme Court, since the case of Gurbaksh Singh Sibbia vs. State of Punjab, (1980) 2 SCC 565, has time and again laid down that the powers under Section 438 Cr.P.C. are extraordinary in nature. It has also been laid down that the said powers could be exercised when it is found that a person has been falsely implicated or a frivolous case is launched against him or there is a reasonable ground for holding that a person accused of an offence is not likely to abscond, or otherwise misuse liberty while on bail. The object behind the bail under Section 438 Cr.P.C. has been lately reiterated in the case of Som Mittal vs. Government of Karnataka, (2008) 3 SCC 753. In para 52 of the said judgment, the Honourable Supreme Court has held as under:-