BALJINDER SINGH ALIAS AMANversusSTATE OF PUNJAB & ANR.

          [2025] 5 S.C.R. 735 : 2025 INSC 796

               Baljinder Singh Alias Aman
                            v.
                 State of Punjab & Anr.
             (Criminal Appeal No. 2629 of 2025)
                          16 May 2025
[B.V. Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma, JJ.]


                    Issue for Consideration
Whether the High Court erred in granting bail to the respondents-
accused(s) setting aside the order of the Trial Court by which it
declined to grant bail.

                           Headnotes†
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – s.439 – Penal Code, 1860 –
ss.302, 323, 34, 427, 120B – High Court set aside the order
of the Trial Court declining to grant bail to the respondents-
accused(s) – Interference with:
Held: Respondents are alleged to have committed the offence
u/s.302, IPC – It may be a fact that the respondent-accused(s)
may have carried the injured victim, who later died, to the Hospital
but he was actually brought dead to the hospital – This fact will
have to be considered de hors from the fact as to who actually had
committed the offence in the first place in the instant case – Trial
court rightly noted the said aspect and declined to grant bail –
However, the High Court set aside the said order and granted bail
on a very cryptic reasoning – Order of the High Court set aside
and that of the Sessions Court is restored. [Paras 19, 20]

                           List of Acts
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973; Penal Code, 1860.

                        List of Keywords
Bail; Regular bail; Regular bail declined; Regular bail rightly
declined; Injured victim; Brought dead; Cryptic reasoning; Wooden
stick blow on the head; Filthy language; Trespass; Dismantling
the barbed wire fencing on the property; Wooden sticks; Habitual
offender.
736                                                          [2025] 5 S.C.R.

                          Supreme Court Reports


                             Case Arising From
       CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeal No.
       2629 of 2025
       From the Judgment and Order dated 14.11.2024 of the High Court
       of Punjab & Haryana at Chandigarh in CRMM No. 36312 of 2024
       With
       Criminal Appeal No. 2630 of 2025

                          Appearances for Parties
       Advs. for the Appellant:
       Dev Datt Kamat, Sr. Adv., Revanta Solanki, Hruday Bajentri, Lalit
       Singla, VPS Mithewal, Shivam Garg, Ms. Varsha Sharma, Lalit
       Singla, Raj Kishor Choudhary, Shakeel Ahmed, Ms. Lara Siddiqui,
       Ms. Pratibha Singh, Dhruv Kaushik, Sarfaraj Ahmed Siddiqui,
       Vikram Patralekh.
       Advs. for the Respondents:
       Randeep Singh Rai, Sr. Adv., Siddhant Sharma, Ms. Osheen Bhat,
       Aman Dwivedi, Karan Sharma, Pushpinder Singh, Ms. Anurag
       Rana, Dharmendar Singh, Harsh Wadhwani, D. Bharat Kumar,
       Manoj Kumar, Aman Shukla, M. Chandrakanth Reddy, Ms. Mehak
       Sharma, Gopal Jha, Yash Gupta.

                 Judgment / Order of the Supreme Court

                                 Judgment

       Leave granted.
2.     These appeals have been preferred by the complainant by being
       aggrieved by the order dated 14.11.2024 passed by the High Court
       of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh in CRM-M-35115/2024 (O&M)
       and CRM-M-36312/2024 (O&M).
3.     By the impugned order, the High Court has set aside the order of the
       Trial Court declining to grant regular bail to the respondents herein
       and consequently, has allowed the petitions for bail. At this stage
       itself, it may be mentioned that the regular bail was sought by the
       respondents herein with regard to the FIR No.30 dated 22.03.2023
       which was registered under Sections 302, 323, 148, 149 (Sections 148
[2025] 5 S.C.R.                                                         737

          Baljinder Singh Alias Aman v. State of Punjab & Anr.


     and 149 deleted and Sections 34, 427, 120B added later on) of the
     Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short “IPC”) at Police Station Nangal,
     District Rupnagar.
4.   The said FIR was registered based on the statement given by
     the complainant (hereinafter “appellant”) against accused No. 1 –
     Mandeep Singh alias Bhoda and accused No.2- Narinder Kumar
     alias Nindi (hereinafter “respondents”).
5.   According to the statement of the appellant, he runs his own crusher
     under the name ‘Sat Sahib’ located in the village Haripur. He
     purchased land measuring approx. 65 acres at the village in Taraf
     Majri, Tehsil Nangal. He has further stated that abutting to the said
     land, there is the land of accused No. 1. The appellant alleged that
     he received a telephonic call at about 11.30 p.m. to the effect that
     the respondents, accompanied by 7-8 other persons, were using
     filthy language against the appellant and trespassed onto his land
     by dismantling the barbed wire fencing on his property. It was further
     alleged that after receiving the said call, the appellant along with his
     driver Anil (hereinafter “deceased”), Deepak Kumar and Chowkidar
     Bahadur Singh had gone to the appellant’s land at Taraf Majri in his
     Land Cruiser vehicle when the respondents rammed their Fortuner
     car into the car of the appellant. When appellant came out from his
     car, accused No. 1 hit the deceased with their car and threw him
     down. It was alleged that all the accused persons were armed with
     wooden sticks when they stepped out of their car. Accused No.1
     gave a wooden stick blow on the head of the deceased whereas
     accused No.2 inflicted injuries to the deceased and other persons
     accompanying the appellant. The appellant witnessed the entire
     occurrence but fearing for his life, fled the scene and later discovered
     that the respondents took deceased to the hospital where he was
     found to be dead.
6.   The respondents were arrested in connection with aforesaid FIR on
     23.03.2023 and were sent to judicial custody.
7.   The Inspector General (IG) Rupnagar Range, Rupnagar, on receipt
     of complaint from Dev Raj (father of accused No. 2) transferred the
     investigation in the present matter to Ms. Darpan Ahluwalia, IPS,
     Assistant Superintendent of Police, Sub Division Dera Bassi, District
     SAS Nagar, Mohali.
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                          Supreme Court Reports


8.     A charge sheet was submitted by the SHO, Police Station Nangal
       before the competent court on 20.06.2023. The JMIC, Rupnagar
       took cognizance and the matter was committed to learned Additional
       Sessions Judge, Rupnagar (hereinafter “trial court”) for trial and
       adjudication. Thereafter, a supplementary charge sheet was filed
       on 09.10.2023 based on subsequent investigation conducted by
       Assistant Superintendent of Police, Dera Bassi, District SAS Nagar.
9.     Being aggrieved, the respondents filed a petition (CRM-M-62252-2023)
       under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter
       “CrPC”) before the High Court seeking quashing of charge sheet.
       The High Court by order dated 15.12.2023 directed the trial court
       to adjourn the proceedings beyond the date fixed by the High
       Court (i.e. 09.01.2024). Being aggrieved, the appellant filed SLP
       (Crl.) Diary No.15274/2024 before this Court, which was dismissed
       on 13.05.2024 with liberty to the appellant to move an application
       before High Court for early hearing of the main matter. However, the
       application filed for that purpose by the appellant before High Court
       was dismissed on 16.07.2024. As such, the interim order passed
       on 15.12.2023 for restraining the trial court from proceeding further
       with trial proceedings is still in operation.
10. In the above backdrop, the respondents had earlier preferred an
    application seeking regular bail under Section 439 of the CrPC before
    the trial court by way of separate bail applications bearing Nos. BA-612-
    2024 (accused No. 1) and BA-634-2024 (accused No. 2). The same
    came to be dismissed by orders dated 21.05.2024 and 24.05.2024
    respectively, finding that accused No. 1 is a habitual offender as
    eight other criminal cases have also been registered against him
    and keeping in view the gravity of the offences in this case and the
    heinous crime alleged to have been committed by the respondents.
11. Thereafter, the respondents again preferred regular bail applications
    bearing Nos. CRM-M-35115/2024 (O&M) (accused No. 1) and
    CRM-M-36312/2024 (O&M) (accused No. 2) before the High Court.
    The High Court allowed the said applications by way of the common
    impugned order dated 14.11.2024, thereby enlarging the respondents
    on bail. Being aggrieved by the grant of bail, the appellant-complainant
    has preferred the instant appeal before this Court.
12. We have heard learned senior counsel for the appellant, learned
    counsel for the first respondent-State and learned counsel for the
[2025] 5 S.C.R.                                                          739

          Baljinder Singh Alias Aman v. State of Punjab & Anr.


     respondent-accused(s) at length. We have also perused the material
     on record.
13. Appellant’s counsel made a two-fold submissions: firstly, he drew our
    attention to the impugned order and contended that the impugned
    order is lacking in reasons for granting relief of bail to the respondents
    herein inasmuch as paragraph 12 of the impugned order only
    records the submissions in a cryptic manner, the reasoning given
    in paragraphs 13 and 14 and consequently, the relief of bail was
    granted to the respondents herein.
14. He further submitted that the reasons are erroneous inasmuch they
    do not make merit a case for grant of bail. In this context, it was
    submitted that the respondents have been, inter alia, alleged to have
    committed the offence under Section 302 IPC, the manner in which
    the offence was committed itself is gruesome and was planned
    and executed in a manner which reflects that there was a criminal
    conspiracy amongst the accused.
15. The Sessions Court rightly declined to grant bail and the respondent-
    accused(s) were in jail for a period of one year and eight months;
    the chargesheet had been filed and the supplementary chargesheet
    had also been filed. However, there was a challenge made in the
    High Court in another proceeding which has stayed the trial itself.
    He therefore, contended that on the one hand, the respondents-
    accused have been granted the relief of bail and on the other hand,
    there is a stay of trial. The said orders would require interference at
    the hands of this Court inasmuch as the respondents herein have
    criminal antecedents and they are not entitled to the relief of bail
    having regard to the manner in which the deceased was put to death.
    He, therefore, submitted that the impugned order may be set aside
    and consequently, the grant of bail may be cancelled.
16. Learned counsel for the first respondent-State with reference to his
    counter affidavit contended that the State is supporting the case of
    the appellant-complainant herein and therefore, having regard to the
    merits of the case, appropriate orders may be made in these appeals.
17. Learned counsel for the respondent-accused(s) submitted that the
    High Court has rightly identified the reasons as to why the respondent-
    accused(s) are entitled to the relief of bail, the fact the accused
    themselves carried the deceased to the hospital and saw to it that
    he was given treatment immediately which shows that there was no
740                                                            [2025] 5 S.C.R.

                              Supreme Court Reports


       criminal intent in their mind; they further submitted that the High Court
       has recorded in detail the submissions of the learned counsel for
       the respective parties and has come to a right conclusion and hence
       there is no merit in these appeals and the same may be dismissed.
18. We have given our consideration to the arguments advanced at the
    bar and we have perused the material on record.
19. We note that, inter alia, the respondent-accused (s) have been
    alleged to have committed the offence under Section 302 of the IPC.
    It may be a fact that the respondent-accused(s) may have carried
    the injured victim, who later died, to the Hospital but he was actually
    brought dead to the hospital. This fact will have to be considered
    de hors from the fact as to who actually had committed the offence
    in the first place in the instant case. The trial court has rightly noted
    the said aspect and declined to grant bail. However, the High Court
    has set aside the said order and in a very cryptic reasoning has
    granted the relief of bail.
20. In the circumstances, we find that the order of the High Court calls
    for interference and therefore, the same is set aside. Consequently,
    the order of the Sessions Court is restored.
21. Since the respondent-accused(s) have been on bail pursuant to the
    impugned order dated 14.11.2024, we direct them to surrender before
    the Court of the Jurisdictional Magistrate or the concerned Police
    Station on or before 16.06.2025, who will take them into custody.
22. In case of failure of the accused to surrender on or before 16.06.2025,
    the Police concerned shall take steps to arrest both the accused.
23. In the meanwhile, the respondent-accused(s) shall deposit their
    passports at the Police Station, Nangal, District Rupnagar on or
    before 19.05.2025.
       The appeals are allowed and disposed of in the aforesaid terms.
       Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.

       Result of the case: Appeals allowed.



       †
           Headnotes prepared by: Divya Pandey