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Bhoopendra Singh v. The State of Rajasthan

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 691Decided 29 Oct 2021
Criminal Appeal No. 1279 of 2021
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice B.V. Nagarathna

Background

The appellant's father, a village Sarpanch, survived an earlier attempt on his life in 2015 but was murdered in September 2017, just before he was to testify in that earlier case. The second respondent (a relative of the accused) was charge-sheeted and arrested, and her first four bail applications were rejected by the High Court. On her fifth application, the High Court granted her bail, holding that no overt act was attributed to her and that she had already spent nearly four years in custody.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that the High Court's observation that "no overt act" was attributed to the second respondent was factually wrong: the charge-sheet showed she had used multiple SIM cards to stay in contact with the hired shooter and her son (both co-accused), and that she had stored the weapons used in the murder at her rented premises. The Court held that the High Court failed to weigh the seriousness of the crime and ignored that there had been no genuine change in circumstances since the earlier rejections. The appeal was allowed, the bail order was set aside, and the second respondent was directed to surrender by 7 November 2021, with the Court clarifying its observations were only for the bail question and would not affect the pending trial.

Lesson Learnt

A bail order can be set aside on appeal when the granting court overlooks concrete evidence already on record (such as call records and witness statements in a charge-sheet), particularly where several earlier bail pleas were rejected without any real change in circumstances.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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