Madras High Court: The High Court recently dealt with a petition for anticipatory bail under Sec. 438 of the CrPC wherein the petitioner apprehended arrest at the hands of the Police under certain sections of the Penal Code, 1860.
The facts of the case is that the petitioner had previously filed for anticipatory bail before the same Court which was rejected on the basis of misappropriation of funds by the petitioner and submission of the Prosecution that custodial interrogation of the accused was imperative in this case. Following this, the petitioner again applied for anticipatory bail before the Principal District and Sessions Judge, wherein he also suppressed the information of his previous application being dismissed. Once this was brought to the notice of the Judge, his application was again rejected which is when the petitioner applied for the anticipatory bail in question, before this Court.
The Government Advocate contended that the facts of the case have seen no changes ever since the dismissal of the previous applications and with the investigation still pending owing to the Petitioner absconding, it’s important that the application for anticipatory bail, this time too, is dismissed.
The Bench of A.M. Basheer Ahamed, J., held that since the petitioner in the bail application which the Court was dealing with had suppressed the information of the dismissal of his previous applications and the respondents had not brought that crucial piece of information to the notice of the Court, the application shall be considered and the petitioner would be granted anticipatory bail. The Court also considered the fact that the respondent had not taken sufficient measures to secure the petitioner which also played a role in the decision it took.
The Court thus allowed the petitioner with anticipatory bail taking into consideration the attitude of the respondent along with the facts. [Narayanan v. The State Rep. by the Inspector of Police Kadaladi Police Station, 2017 SCC OnLine Mad 3007, decided on 30.06.2017]