STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Jammu & Kashmir High Court rejected bail application of hard core criminal Sunny Choudhary @ Sunny Baba facing trial in a murder case.
Justice Rajnesh Oswal after hearing Adv Sudershan Sharma for the applicant whereas AAG Aseem Sawhney for the UT, while rejecting the bail application, observed that there are serious allegations against petitioner for hatching a conspiracy for committing murder and arranging killers in pursuance of aforesaid conspiracy. “At this stage, it cannot be determined that the allegations are either false or not true as number of other witnesses are yet to be examined and there is every chance that if petitioner is enlarged on bail, he may influence witnesses as the petitioner is facing trial for commission of offence, which is punishable with death or imprisonment to life. As far as delay in conclusion of trial is concerned, perusal of record shows that the trial court has conducted effective proceedings and even to secure the presence of the complainant-PW-1, trial court has resorted to even coercive process. It requires to be noted that for last two years, the courts have been functioning in restricted mode and obviously some delay has caused due to COVID-19,” the Court observed.
Court further observed that it is evident that charges for commission of offence under sections 302, 109, 120-B of RPC were framed against the petitioner on January 2, 2015 by the trial court, that other co-accused met with the accused for committing murder of the deceased and hatched a conspiracy. The accused arranged two persons, namely, Gulshan Kumar and Balbir Singh for committing murder of deceased. The prosecution has cited as many as 55 witnesses, out of which only 11 witnesses have been examined till date and rest of the witnesses including complainant, are yet to be examined. “Petitioner is facing trial for commission of offences under sections 302, 109 and 120-B of RPC and there is specific bar with regard to grant of bail for offence under section 302 RPC. At this stage, from the perusal of the statements of the witnesses, no definite opinion can be formed that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the petitioner is not guilty of alleged offences. No doubt that the petitioner is facing trial for the last seven years but it is also fact that he is facing trial for commission of heinous offence of murder,” the Court observed and rejected bail plea.