Jammu & Kashmir High Court: A Single Judge Bench of Sanjay Kumar Gupta, J., disposed of a revision petition filed against the order of the lower court, whereby the respondent was granted bail in a case related to the offences under Sections 457, 497 and 109 of the Ranbir Penal Code.
The main issue that arose before the Court was whether the lower court was justified in granting bail to the respondent.
One of the main contentions raised by the petitioner was that the respondent was a BSF officer i.e. he belonged to a disciplined and reputed force of this country and an offence of adultery committed by him on a woman, who was the school teacher, was an offence against the education system as well.
The Court observed that the offences under Sections 457 and 497 of the RPC are non-bailable. The lower court ought to have afforded an opportunity to the prosecuting agency to put forth objections before granting bail to the respondent, however the said opportunity was not given to the prosecuting agency and the respondent was granted bail as he himself surrendered before the court.
The Court held that the order passed by the lower court was not according to the law since it was passed without providing the prosecution an opportunity to place objections, as the offences for which the accused was charged were non-bailable offences. However, since a time of 6 years had already passed, the Court refused to cancel the bail granted to the petitioner by the lower court.[Mohd. Ayub v. Sudesh Kumar, CRR No. 56 of 2012, order dated 30-10-2018]
