Punjab and Haryana High Court denies pre-arrest bail to man accused of tearing pages of Sikh holy book
Case was registered on the complaint of one Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee member that some mischievous persons tore pages of Sikh religious scripture and when he along with others approached the place of incident, the assailants also attacked him.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court recently refused to grant anticipatory bail to a man, accused of tearing pages of Sikh religious scripture and attacking a Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee member.
The bench of Justice Harnesh Singh Gill observed that the man was a proclaimed offender. Therefore, in light of Supreme Court's direction in Prem Shankar Prasad Vs. State of Bihar and another (2021) stating that "if an accused is declared a proclaimed offender in terms of Section 82 CrPC, he is not entitled to the relief of anticipatory bail", Court held that the petitioner did not deserve the relief.
A First Information Report under Sections 307, 382, 435, 427, 341, 323, 506, 148 and 149 IPC (Sections 436, 355, 298, 379-B and 120-B IPC and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, added later on) was registered in the year 2015, on the basis of the statement of one Darshan Singh, a member of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.
Singh had stated that some mischievous persons tore the pages of Sikh religious scripture and when he along with others approached the spot where the incident had allegedly taken place, the assailants also attacked him.
Initially, the FIR was registered against unidentified persons. However, on the basis of the supplementary statement of complainant-Darshan Singh, the present petitioner was indicted in the case.
Pressing petitioner's pre-arrest bail plea, his counsel argued before the court that all the co-accused had been acquitted of the charges and the petitioner had already challenged the order of 2017 which declared him a proclaimed offender.
Court noted that though a notice of motion had been issued in petitioner's plea challenging the order declaring him a proclaimed offender, no interim protection had been granted to him.
Therefore, Court held that the instant case squarely fell within the four corners of the Supreme Court's observations in the abovementioned case and dismissed petitioner's plea for pre-arrest bail.
Case Title: Lovepreet Singh v. State of Punjab