‘Grave error’: Supreme Court reverses bail for Haldwani riot accused, orders surrender

Hearing the appeal filed by the state government challenging this, the Supreme Court said, “In our opinion, the High Court committed a grave error in facts as well as in law in extending the benefit of default bail to the respondents.”

The Supreme Court noted that the trial court, on the request of the investigating agency, had, from time to time, extended the time to complete the probe and also rejected the accused’s plea for bail.

Ultimately, the chargesheet against the accused came to be filed on July 7, 2024, before the extended period expired on July 11, 2024.

The accused, meanwhile, approached the HC against the trial court order extending the time and rejecting their bail plea.

‘Sluggish’ probe claims

Granting them relief, the High Court also criticised the investigation, saying that, despite the accused being in custody for more than 90 days, “no substantial progress has been made in the investigation”.

The High Court added, “The manner in which the investigation proceeded clearly reveals the carelessness on the part of the investigating officer as to how slow the investigation proceeded, that too, in such a situation where the appellants were languishing in judicial custody. In three months’ time, statements of only eight witnesses and four public witnesses were recorded. The height of sluggish investigation is that in the first month, only two public witnesses and one official witness were examined.”

The Supreme Court, however, disagreed. “Having gone through the record, we find that the High Court has completely gone wrong in casting aspersions on the conduct of the Investigating Officer in failing to complete the investigation within a period of 90 days,” it said.

The bench pointed out, “The FIR had been filed in relation to an incident of widespread arson, rioting and damage to public property, including the building of the police station, wherein a large number of accused persons were arraigned with the allegation of using petrol bombs and other arsenal in the incident. A few other incidents of a similar nature took place in the nearby areas, in relation to which separate FIRs were filed.”

Right to default bail

The Supreme Court added, “In our opinion, it was absolutely unreasonable of the High Court to have observed that the investigating agency had not proceeded with the investigation at a reasonable pace or that it had acted with lethargy.”

“The observation that only eight official witnesses and four public witnesses had been examined in three months is factually incorrect… because in the said period of 90 days, the statements of 65 witnesses had been recorded by the investigating agency. Thus, without a doubt, the investigation was proceeding with utmost expediency in a case which would have presented grave challenges to the investigation agency, considering the magnitude of the crime and the large number of accused and witnesses.”

The order said, “Further, the High Court failed to advert to the important fact that the accused respondents never challenged the orders of extension of time and rejection of bail by promptly approaching the High Court and instead waited till September, 2024 before filing the appeal. It is not in dispute that long before the appeal came to be filed, investigation was completed and chargesheet had been filed.”

The apex court said, “Thus…by the time the accused respondents approached the High Court, they had lost the right to seek default bail by their acquiescence.”