Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Bhulu Dhar @ Bullo Dhar vs Unknown on 16 August, 2021
42 16-08-2021
(ct. no.32) KOLE Allowed (Via Video Conference) CRM 2849 of 2021 In re: An application for bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in connection with Narayanpur Police Station Case No. 19 of 2018 dated 02.10.2018 under Sections 6/10 of the POCSO Act read with Section 376 (2)(i) of the Indian Penal Code.
-And-
In the matter of : Bhulu Dhar @ Bullo Dhar .... Petitioner.
Mr. Kamalesh Ch. Saha ... For the Petitioner.
Mr. Saswata Gopal Mukherji, Ld. APP Mr. P. P. Das, Mrs. M. Roy, ... For the State.
Liberty is granted to the petitioner's learned Advocate to correct the cause title of the petition.
The petitioner is the grand father of the victim girl who, we are told, was 13 years old at the time of the incident. The charge is under Sections 6/10 of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 read with Section 376 (2)(i) of the Indian Penal Code.
We have seen the material in the case diary including the statement of the victim girl recorded under Section 164 of the Code. The trial is in progress. The petitioner's prayer for bail was rejected by a Coordinate Bench by an order dated July 8, 2019 passed in CRM 5389 of 2019. More than two years have elapsed since then. Nobody can say with any certainty when the trial will conclude. The petitioner is in custody for about 2 years 6 months.
2The State says that since the trial is in progress and the petitioner's prayer was once rejected by this court, the present prayer should not be entertained.
However, we are of the view that sufficiently long period of time has passed since the last rejection and it is anybody's guess as to when the trial will conclude. The petitioner has been in custody for quite a long time.
On an overall assessment of the material on record and given the extent of possible complicity of the petitioner in the alleged offence, we are of the view that further custodial detention of the petitioner is not necessary.
Accordingly, we direct that the petitioner shall be released on 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 Special Judge (POCSO) Barrackpore, North 24 Parganas and on further conditions that he will not enter the jurisdiction of Narayanpur Police Station. He will also furnish the address where he will reside now to the officer-in-charge of the concerned police station and shall report to the Officer-in-Charge of the concerned police station once in a fortnight until further orders. 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 in any manner whatsoever.
In the event the petitioner fails to adhere to any of the conditions stipulated above without justifiable cause, the 3 trial court shall be at liberty to cancel the petitioner's bail in accordance with law without further reference to this court.
The application for bail is, accordingly, allowed. All parties shall act in terms of server copy of the order downloaded from the official website of this Court. ( Suvra Ghosh, J. ) ( Arijit Banerjee, J. )