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While granting bail to a person accused of burning a shop during Delhi riots, the Delhi High Court held that 'sending a message to society' cannot be a basis for denying bail, if the court is otherwise convinced that keeping the accused in judicial custody will serve no purpose in support of the investigation and prosecution.
The Single Bench of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani noted that prison is primarily for punishing convicts; not for detaining undertrials in order to send any 'message' to society.
The court said: 'The remit of the court is to dispense justice in accordance with the law, not to send messages to society. It is this sentiment, whereby the State demands that undertrials be kept in prison inordinately without any purpose, that leads to overcrowding of jails; and leaves undertrials with the inevitable impression that they are being punished even before trial and therefore being treated unfairly by the system. If at the end of a protracted trial, the prosecution is unable to bring home guilt, the State cannot give back to the accused the years of valuable life lost in prison. On the other hand, an accused would of course be made to undergo his sentence after it has been awarded, after trial.'
After looking at the evidence, the court observed that nowhere does the complainant name or otherwise identify the applicant. The Court refused to rely on the testimony of Constable Vikas, who claimed to be the eyewitness, by noting that the complainant had indicated in his complaint that when the accused allegedly burned his store, he tried to call the police, but in vain.
'Even on first blush, it is not understood as to why the complainant would say that he failed to reach the police by telephone if Ct. Vikas was already present there', the court observed.
The Court also showed doubts about the claim that CCTV cameras could capture incidents outside the complainant's shop from a school located 400 meters away.
While granting bail, the court highlighted that:'While ordinarily this court would not have entered upon any discussion on the evidence at the stage of considering bail, however here is a case where a purported unlawful assembly of some 250-300 persons is alleged to have committed offenses; of which the police have picked-up only two, one of them being the applicant. In this peculiar circumstance, this court was compelled to sift the evidence only prima-facie and limited to cursorily assessing how the police have identified the applicant from that large assembly of persons.'
Senior Advocate Rebecca M John, and Advocate Bilal Anwar Khan in this case represented the petitioner.
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