4 min readPatnaAug 8, 2026 08:45 PM IST
The Patna High Court has directed that records of a 2024 firing case be placed before the Acting Chief Justice for initiating “appropriate action” against a Patna judge after it found serious faults in a bail order in the case.
In its ruling dated July 29 but made public only recently, Justice Sandeep Kumar held that the bail granted to Dharmendra Kumar, who is accused of opening fire on a man in Patna’s Digha on June 6, 2024, could not be sustained.
The court said the bail order was “perverse”, relied on irrelevant considerations and ignored material on record — including Kumar’s criminal antecedents and the medical evidence concerning the alleged shooting.
“The impugned order suffers from complete non-application of judicial mind and therefore cannot be sustained and is accordingly liable to be cancelled,” the judgment says.
The case arose from a June 6, 2024 incident in Patna’s Digha, in which the informant, Shyam Sundari Devi, alleged that her son Gopi alias Mukesh Kumar was shot at while feeding his cow. Kumar was arrested on June 7, 2024.
In its recent order, the High Court also took note of what it described as “unusual haste and expedition” in the disposal of Kumar’s bail plea and the fact that it was allowed on July 22, 2024, a date that, according to the record, had not been fixed for hearing.
“First, the concerned judge has passed the impugned order while recording an observation which is ex-facie contrary to the injury report of victim issued by the Patna Medical College. Secondly, the fact that unusual haste and expedition while passing the impugned order has been exercised and thirdly and most pertinently, the impugned order came to be passed and allowed on a date on which, the same was not even fixed,” Justice Sandeep Kumar’s judgment says, while cancelling Kumar’s bail.
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This came after the prosecution argued that the order had ignored a report from the Patna Medical College and Hospital, which recorded an injury beside the right eye, tenderness in the left leg and, on X-ray, a foreign body in the region of the fibula (calf bone). The report opined the injury to be “grievous”.
While granting bail on July 22, 2024, the lower court had noted the existence of the counter-case, a land dispute between the parties and the absence of any firearm injury in the report.
“Sign of any firearm injury is not apparent in the injury report anywhere though the same talks about a grievous injury to the fibula of the son of the informant. There is no injury to any vital part of the body,” the order said.
The order also referred to the absence of the alleged firing in CCTV footage examined by the investigating officer and said there was no material suggesting that the accused would flee or tamper with evidence.
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The High Court criticised this order and referred to Kumar’s criminal records, saying that while he disclosed two criminal cases in his bail petition, he failed to mention two additional cases, including one in which a chargesheet had already been filed.
An applicant seeking bail has an obligation to make a “fair, complete and candid disclosure” of criminal antecedents, the court said.
The court also examined the manner in which the bail plea was processed. “…it may be noticed that the unnatural expedition displayed in the disposal deepens the irregularity. Justice must not only be done, but it must also appear to have been done.”
