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Synopsis

The Supreme Court has taken a serious view of filing repeated anticipatory bail applications by a man and imposed Rs 2 lakh as cost upon him while directing the police to arrest him within three days.

A bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and Aravind Kumar found that the petitioner Parteek Arora alias Parteek Juneja wished to circumvent and take undue advantage of the procedural law.

"Even after registration of a criminal case and refusal of anticipatory bail twice by the High Court, petitioner has not surrendered. When the High Court was not inclined to grant anticipatory bail, the petitioner opted to withdraw his petition. Thereafter, when on application being filed in the said disposed of case, direction came to be issued by calling upon the police authorities to file the status report. Thereafter, the present special leave petition has been filed," the bench said.

The bench said it was unaware whether the Commissioner of Police, Amritsar had filed an affidavit as directed by the high court on December 11, 2024.

"But, it is a fact that even after rejection of the first bail application and the second bail application, the petitioner has not been taken into custody. Thereby, petitioner intends to take undue advantage of procedural law for reasons best known," the bench said

The court said it was inclined to dismiss this special leave petition with costs of Rs 2,00,000, to be deposited by the petitioner with the Punjab State Legal Services Authority and proof thereof be filed within one week.

"We direct the Commissioner of Police, Amrtisar, to arrest the petitioner within three days and to file an affidavit before the Registry of this Court on the fourth day. On filing of such affidavit, matter be placed for orders before the bench on 29th January, 2025," the bench said.

The petitioner filed the special leave petition against the Punjab and Haryana High Court's order of September 30, 2024.

The court found that the high court dismissed the second anticipatory bail petition filed by the petitioner, as withdrawn, after hearing arguments at length.

Thereafter, the petitioner filed another application, and the high court then took a stringent view.

On December 11, 2024, the high court noted that the FIR in the present case was registered on June 25, 2023. For more than one year, no action was taken against the accused. Thereafter, the police started raiding the house of the petitioner and apprehending his arrest, he had filed the anticipatory bail petition before the high court.

"However, this court was not inclined to grant the concession of anticipatory bail to the petitioner and the same was withdrawn on September 30 2024. Now a period of almost 03 months has elapsed but no steps have been taken by the police either to arrest the accused or to declare him a proclaimed offender. This clearly shows that the officials of the local police have colluded with the accused in the present case," the high court had said.

It had directed that a status report of the investigation may be filed on or before the next date of hearing by way of personal affidavit of the Commissioner of Police, Amritsar. The concerned Deputy Commissioner of Police, Amritsar was directed to remain personally present in the dourt on the next date of hearing.

During pendency of the matter, the present special leave petition was filed on January 10, 2025 challenging the impugned order of September 30, 2024, the apex court noted.

The apex court pointed out the high court had noted the police were sitting tight over the matter and not taking any action to arrest the accused despite rejection of the anticipatory bail, up to the period of three months and a direction was issued to the Commissioner of Police, Amritsar, to file an affidavit with regard to the status of investigation, and further direction was issued to the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Amritsar, to remain personally present on December 19, 2024.

"In that situation, the present special leave petition has been filed on 10.01.2025. On the same date, i.e., on 10.01.2025, when the case was listed before the High Court, adjournment was sought and finally on 20.01.2025, without arguing the case before the High Court, the application which had been filed for recalling the order dated 30.09.2024 was not pressed," the bench pointed out.

Case Title: Parteek Arora @ Parteek Juneja Vs State of Punjab