The Orissa High Court recently denied anticipatory bail to a man accused of leading a group of individuals to attack shops owned by members of a community and raising slogans which resulted in a chaotic scenario in Sambalpur city last month.
A single-judge bench of Justice Chittaranjan Dash said, “Pre-arrest bail being an extraordinary discretionary power cannot be granted in routine. There is nothing in the F.I.R. that the Petitioner holds a prestigious position so as to draw an inference that in a situation of this kind, a case could have been hatched against him in order to defame him.”
“On the contrary, grant of pre – arrest bail vis-à-vis the allegations made in the F.I.R. will have a great ramification when the situation is volatile and as such it is not desirable to allow prearrest bail in favour of the Petitioner before he is subjected to investigation/interrogation,” the court added.
On April 14, an FIR was filed against a group of people, including the petitioner, for allegedly ransacking the New Alishan Shoe Centre in Sambalpur town during the celebration of Hanuman Jayanti.
The Counsel appearing for the petitioner stated that he had no role in the alleged incident and he had been falsely implicated. The Counsel representing the respondent argued that the matter is not only sensitive but the situation is not yet clear in the locality, and there being materials against the man prima facie attributable against him to have led the mob, the petitioner should not be granted bail.
“A judicial notice can also be taken of the fact that a riot took place thereafter leading to arson and bloodshed,” the court observed.
“Nothing also appears from the ground propounded by the Petitioner in his prayer for pre-arrest bail showing him to be a person having clean image or a man of standing repute, the custodial interrogation whereupon would tarnish his image,” the court noted.
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