Punjab and Haryana High Court: The Court recently had to decide upon anticipatory bail application under Section 438 CrPC. The case was registered against the petitioner under Sections 420, 467, 468, 120-B IPC jointly by 46 persons (workers of Municipal corporation) for allegedly alluring them by promising to them falsely hope of obtaining permanent Class IV jobs in the Municipal Corporation, Amritsar, by taking amounts of money ranging from Rs.50,000/- to Rs.3,00,000/- per person for procuring permanent job openings.
The Court observed that the allegations on the petitioner were quite serious. The Court took note of another important fact that the petitioner was involved even in making of fake identity cards. For the allegations stated in the FIR, the Court thought it to be essential to refer the accused/petitioner for custodial interrogation and outrightly rejected his argument regarding inadmissibility of evidence specifically at such a nascent stage.
Rajiv Narayan Raina, J. went on to say that if he is granted the anticipatory bail, it would hinder the investigation by police as well as it’ll deprive them of the chances to recover the money of complainants and the forged documents which might further prove detrimental to the prosecution’s case.
The Court invoked the well-settled principle of law that the order of anticipatory bail cannot be allowed to circumvent normal procedure of arrest and effective investigation by the police. The Court further explained that the provision of anticipatory bail must not act as an in-road in the statutory investigation by the police. It being mindful of the difficulties that the investigating agency might have to face dismissed the petition. [Sukhwinder Singh @ Raju v. State of Punjab, 2017 SCC OnLine P&H 2205, decided on 06.07.2017]
