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CASE NO.: Appeal (crl.)  1470 of 2005

PETITIONER: State of Tamil Nadu                                              

RESPONDENT: S.A. Raja                                                                

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 26/10/2005

BENCH: K.G. Balakrishnan & P.P. Naolekar

JUDGMENT: J U D G M E N T [Arising out of SLP (Criminal) No.3366 of 2005] K.G. BALAKRISHNAN,  J.

       Leave granted.         An order passed by the learned Single Judge of the High Court of  Madras at Madurai granting bail to the respondent herein is challenged  before us.  The respondent is one of the accused in a criminal case  charged by the Inspector of Alangulam Police Station in Tirunelveli  District.  The charges are under Sections 147, 148, 120B, 341, 302, 207,  212 and 109  IPC read with Section 25(1) of the Arms Act.  

The brief case of the prosecution is that one Aladi Aruna, an ex- Minister of the Government of Tamil Nadu,  had gone for a morning walk  along with one Ponraj on 31.12.2004. At about 7.15 a.m. while Aladi  Aruna, Ponraj and one Socraties were walking through Pashupati Road,  accused A3 accompanied by A2 and A4 intercepted Aladi Aruna  and A3  attempted to shoot him with his country-made revolver but the revolver  did not work whereupon A2 inflicted injuries on Aladi Aruna with Aruval  (sickle) on the back of his   head and when his friend Ponraj tried to save  him, he was also attacked by A4 who inflicted injuries on his neck and  head.    Socraties also tried to save them,  but A2, A3 and A4 turned  against him and he could manage to escape from the scene of  occurrence.  A1, who was also present  at the place of occurrence,   warned A2, A3 and A4 since he sensed that somebody was coming and  all of them ran away from the place of incident.  Aladi Aruna and Ponraj  died at the spot.    Accused persons fled the place on a motorbike.

On the basis of the information collected during the investigation,  present respondent was arrested on 30.1.2005.  The prosecution alleged  that the respondent had a strong motive to do away with Aladi Aruna as  there were disputes between the respondent and the deceased Aladi  Aruna.  The respondent has  Engineering Colleges at Tirunelveli and  Nagercoil.  In 2000, he started another Engineering College at Athiyuthu,  Alangulam.  The prosecution alleged that deceased Aladi Aruna had  started another engineering college near to the college run by the  respondent and on account of this, there were disputes between the  respondent and Aladi Aruna.  The respondent entered into a conspiracy  with other accused and pursuant to that Aladi Aruna and Ponraj were  killed on the date of the incident.  During the course of investigation, the  present respondent was implicated and was arrested on 30.1.2005.

The respondent filed a bail application before the District &  Sessions Judge, Tirunelveli.  The learned District & Sessions Judge  dismissed the bail application on 31.1.2005.  Thereafter, the respondent  moved another bail application before the High Court by filing Criminal  O.P. No. 1242 of 2005.  The High Court dismissed that application on  8.2.2005.  The Order passed by the High Court was challenged before  this Court in S.L.P. (Crl.) No. 998 of 2005.  Later on, the respondent

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withdrew that SLP and moved the High Court by filing Criminal O.P. No.  2439 of 2005.  The High Court dismissed that application on 4.3.2005.   Again, he moved the High Court by filing O.P. No. 2862 of 2005, but  withdrew that application on 21.3.2005.  On 1.4.2005 again, he moved  another application for bail by filing Criminal O.P. No. 3242/2005,   which was dismissed  by the learned Single Judge by an elaborate order.   Learned Single Judge made certain observations in that order.  It was  observed that :

"While there is a confession statement recorded from one of  the accused, the recovery of the part of the amount, which  has been received by the hirelings from A-10, is also brought  to the notice of the Court.  In the instant case, this Court is  able to see force in the contention of the learned Additional  Public Prosecutor that in a case like this, if the Petitioner,  who, according to the prosecution, is very influential, is  bailed out, there is every possibility of tampering with the  evidence.  Under the circumstances, this Court is of the view  that though the charge sheet is laid in the case, it is not a fit  case for granting bail."

       The respondent challenged that order in S.L.P. (Criminal) No. 2014  of 2005 and this Court dismissed the same on 18.4.2005.

Thereafter, the respondent again moved an application for bail  before the High Court of Madras and by the impugned order, the learned  Single Judge of the  High Court  granted bail to the respondent with  certain conditions and that order  is challenged before us.

We heard learned Counsel for the State and also Dr. Abhishek  Manu Singhvi, learned senior Counsel on behalf of the respondent.  

The learned Counsel for the State submitted that after this Court  had dismissed the SLP filed by the respondent, the learned Single Judge  of the Madras High Court should not have granted bail when there was  no change of circumstances.  Learned Single Judge in the impugned  order had stated that the counsel for the petitioner  has submitted that  the co-accused has retracted his confession during the video conference  with the concerned Magistrate.   Although   this fact was denied by the  Government Advocate, the learned Judge relied on the statement made  by the petitioner’s Counsel and granted bail to the respondent.herein.  In  fact, there was no retracted confession as alleged by the present  respondent before the learned Magistrate.  It is true that one of the  accused who had implicated the  present  respondent  made an attempt  to retract the confession.  There was no confession recorded by the  Magistrate under Section 164 of the Cr. P.C.  and it seems that one of  the accused had given some  statement to the police during the course of  the investigation.   We are told that that witness had filed an application  before the court that  his statement should again be recorded by the  police.   We fail to understand why that accused is anxious to retract the  statement made to the police officer  which evidently cannot be used  against him.  The accused must have been trying to protect somebody by  making contradictory statements before the police.  In the impugned  order, it is also mentioned that  the  respondent herein was suffering  from some illness and he was a heart patient and needs effective  treatment from an efficient doctor.  All  these facts must have been  stated by the respondent in his previous applications.  When there was  no change of circumstances, the learned Judge may not have granted  bail to the respondent.  In the Order passed on 1.4.2005, the learned  Single Judge had stated that the respondent herein was likely to  influence the witnesses.  That order was challenged before this Court  and this Court declined to interfere with that order.  Within a short  period, the impugned Order was passed without adverting to any of the  points dealt with by the  learned Single Judge who  declined to grant   bail to the respondent.

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When a learned Single Judge of the same Court  had denied  bail  to the respondent for certain reasons and that order was unsuccessfully  challenged before the appellate forum,  without there being  any major  change of circumstances,  another fresh application should not have  been dealt with within a short span of time unless there were valid  grounds giving rise to a tenable case for bail.  Of course, the principles of  res judicata are not applicable to bail applications,  but the repeated  filing of the bail applications without there being any change of  circumstances would lead to bad precedents.

There are strong allegations against the respondent but we do not  propose to advert to any of the evidence collected against him.  Though  the respondent’s name was not mentioned in the FIR, it is alleged that he  is one of the conspirators and he had a motive to do away with one of the  deceased persons.

In the above circumstances, we allow this appeal,  set aside the  order passed by learned Single Judge and direct that respondent be  taken into custody forthwith.  We further direct that as the final report  has already been filed in the case,  and if the case already  stands  committed to the Sessions Court, the Sessions Judge may complete the  trial as expeditiously   as possible.