Himachal Pradesh High Court: Jyotsna Rewal Dua, J. disposed of a petition seeking ad-interim and regular bail due to inappropriate charges put forth in the First Information Report.
In the present case, the petitioner aged 18 years was arrested and charged under Sections 342, 323, 500, 504, 506-B read with Section 34 of the Penal Code, 1860. The petitioner was also granted bail by the 1st Class Judicial Magistrate vide order dated 26-09-2019. Later on, it came to the notice of the petitioner that Section 3(1)(e)(r) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, had also been added in the FIR in question. Thereafter, the bail application was moved and interim protection was granted to the petitioner.
The Additional Advocate General, Anil Jaswal, representing the respondent-State and submitted a status report regarding the additional charge under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
High Court upon perusal of the status report stated that the charge under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was added on 01-10-2019 whereas the charges under the Penal Code were in the FIR dated 24-09-2019. The Bench also took note of the fact that the status report does not disclose the basis for incorporating the particular section in the FIR. Thereafter the court stated that the petitioner was falsely implicated in the case and since he had been already granted bail there were no necessity for sending an eighteen-year-old student to judicial custody in such circumstances. [Abhishek Chaudhary v. State of Himachal Pradesh, 2019 SCC OnLine HP 1808, decided on 01-11-2019]
