Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Reena Banerjee @ Rina Banerjee vs Unknown on 10 July, 2024
Author: Arijit Banerjee
Bench: Arijit Banerjee
10.07.2024 Item no. 46.
Court No.28.
AB (Interim Bail) CRM (DB) 2003 of 2024 In Re: An Application for Bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in connection with Baduria Police Station Case No.815 of 2016 Dated 22.11.2016 under Sections 370 (5)/315/318/367/368/304/419/420/467/201/120B/34 of the Indian Penal Code read with Sections 75/80/81 of the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection) Act and Section 5 of Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act And In the matter of : Reena Banerjee @ Rina Banerjee ......Petitioner.
Mr. Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee, Mr. Dwaipayan Biswas, Ms. Jayashree Patra, Ms. Ritushree Banerjee ......for the Petitioner. Ms. Rituparna Ghosh, Mr. Aritra Bhattacharya ......for the State. The petitioner is in custody for more than seven years since the trial has not been concluded. This is a very sad state- of-affairs. She prays for bail.
The State opposes the prayer. Learned Advocate says that the last witness is being examined. There is sufficient incriminating evidence against the petitioner. The prayer for bail should be rejected, at this stage.
We find that the mother of the petitioner, who is alleged to be the co-owner of the concerned nursing home, has been enlarged on bail. Learned State Counsel says that is because she is a septuagenarian.
Signed By :
APURBA BANDYOPADHYAY High Court of Calcutta 10 th of July 2024 05:57:42 PM 2 Be that as it may, seven years is too long a period of time to keep any under-trial in custody on the ground that the trial is yet to conclude. The salutary rights of personal liberty and speedy trial, that a citizen can legitimately claim as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution, have to be duly honoured.
Purely on the ground of colossal unexplained delay, which cannot be attributed to the petitioner, we grant interim bail to the petitioner, on stringent conditions.
Accordingly, we direct that the petitioner, namely Reena Banerjee @ Rina Banerjee shall be released on interim bail upon furnishing a bond of Rs.10,000/-, with two sureties of like amount each, one of whom must be local, to the satisfaction of the learned Additional Sessions Judge, Fast Track, 2nd Court, Basirhat, North 24 Parganas, and on further conditions that she shall not leave the jurisdiction of the concerned police station and shall cooperate with the investigation until further orders. The petitioner shall surrender passport, if any, to the learned Trial Court.
The petitioner shall appear before the trial court on every date of hearing until further orders and shall not intimidate the witnesses and/or tamper with evidence and/or commit any cognizable offence in any manner whatsoever.
The order of interim bail shall continue till September 15, 2024.
List this matter once again on September 10, 2024. 3 All parties shall act in terms of server copy of the order downloaded from the official website of this Court.
(Arijit Banerjee, J.) (Apurba Sinha Ray, J.)