No Overwhelming Material On Record To Outweigh Liberty Granted: SC Upholds Bail Granted To CPI (Maoist) Member Who Allegedly Killed 4 Police Personnel

The Bench clarified that the apprehension of the Centre that the accused was likely to pose a threat to the witnesses and the complainant could not be a ground to set aside the impugned order enlarging the accused on bail.

Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Aravind Kumar observed, “In fact, the apprehension of the Union of India that respondent is likely to pose threat to the witnesses and there was a threat posed to the complainant, Mr. Sanjay Kumar Tiwari, would not be a ground to set aside the impugned order enlarging the respondent on bail in as much in the case referred against the respondent for the said offence he has been granted bail. That apart we are of the considered view that there are no other overwhelming material on record to set aside the order granting bail which out weighs the liberty granted by the High Court under the impugned order.”

ASG K.M Nataraj represented the appellant, while Sr. Advocate Siddharth Luthra appeared for the respondent.

The accused, under investigation by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) for alleged offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, Arms Act, and IPC, was granted bail by the Jharkhand High Court in a criminal appeal filed under Section 21 of the NIA Act, 2008.

The Centre challenged this order before the Supreme Court, arguing that the accused was closely associated with the Regional Commander of CPI-Maoist and provided financial as well as logistics support for the terrorist activities.

The Bench reiterated that an accused cannot be detained under the guise of punishing him by presuming his guilt. The Court clarified that the High Cout had imposed conditions before the grant of bail none of the stipulated conditions had been violated by the accused.

“In the absence of their being a strong prima facie case on the conditions of the bail having been violated, it would not be appropriate for the said order being reversed or set aside after a lapse of fifteen (15) months,” the Court added.

“However, to allay the apprehension of the prosecution it would suffice to observe that the prosecution would be at liberty to seek for cancellation of the bail in the event any of the conditions being violated by the respondent and in the event of such an application being filed we see no reason as to why said application would not be considered on its own merits by the jurisdictional court independently and without being influenced by its earlier observations,” the Court remarked.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.

Cause Title: Union Of India v. Mrityunjay Kumar Singh @ Mrityunjay @ Sonu Singh (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 404)

Appearance:

Appellant: ASG K.M Nataraj; AOR Arvind Kumar Sharma; Advocates Shailesh Madiyal, B K Satija, Vinayak Sharma, Aarushi Singh, Suyash Pande and Deepabali Datta

Respondent: Sr. Advocate Siddharth Luthra; Advocates Syed Kamran Ali, Arjun Verma, Indrajit Sinha, Anusuya Sadhu Sinha, Ayush Anand, Sarthak Karol and Siddharth Naidu

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