Dismissed

Abhinav Pal Alias Nanoo and Another v. State of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. Home U.P. Lko.

Allahabad HC18 Apr 2023BAIL/787/2023

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The single judge rejected a bail application filed by two applicants accused of murder and kidnapping under IPC sections 302, 120-B, and others. The high court held that despite non-recovery of the body, call detail records and mobile location tracing prima facie supported the prosecution case.

What did the court decide?

Bail application rejected; no relief granted to the applicants.

Abhinav Pal Alias Nanoo and Another Vs State… — Murder and Culpable Homicide | Allahabad HC (2023)

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Court No. - 16

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Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 787 of 2023

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Applicant :- Abhinav Pal Alias Nanoo And Another Opposite Party :- State Of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. Home U.P. Lko. Counsel for Applicant :- Pranshu Agrawal,Chandan Srivastava Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.,Alok Singh Chauhan,Sudheer Kumar Rawat

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Hon'ble Subhash Vidyarthi,J.

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Heard Sri Chandan Srivastava, learned counsel for the applicant, Sri Vipul Gupta, learned Addl. Government Advocate, Sri Alok Singh Chauhan, learned counsel for the informant, and perused the record.

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By means of the instant application, the applicants Abhinav Pal alias Nanoo S/o Late Ramesh Chandra Pal and Shubham Pal alias Shivam alias Karan S/o Late Ramesh Pal seeks bail in Case Crime No. 371 of 2022, under sections 120-B, 323, 364, 302, 201 I.P.C., P.S. Krishna Nagar, District Lucknow.

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Sri Alok Kumar Rai, Inspector, who was the investigating officer of the present case earlier and Sri Vikram Singh, Inspector, who is the investigating officer of the case presently are present in compliance of the order dated 10.04.2023 and a supplementary affidavit has been filed on behalf of the State, which is taken on record.

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The aforesaid case has been registered on the basis of an F.I.R. lodged on 21.07.2022 against (i) Priti Pal (ii) Abhishek alias Nanoo (applicant no. 1) and (iii) Shivam (applicant no. 2) stating that the informant's son and daughter-in-law were residing in her ancestral house in Pooran Nagar, Lucknow since 10.3.2022 and since the afternoon of 19.07.2022 mobile phone of the informant's son was going switched off. The informant

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made calls on mobile of her daughter-in-law Priti Pal, but she did not pick up her calls and she disconnected the calls repetitively and thereafter she switched off her phone. The informant became suspicious for the aforesaid reason and on 20.07.2022 she sent her brother Sri Jagannath for gathering information, whereupon it came to light that on 19.7.2022 some dispute had occurred between her son and daughter-in-law. Thereafter, her daughter-in-law called her brothers/applicants herein, who had beaten up the informant's son and thereafter the aforesaid persons took him away on a motorcycle. The informant stated that the accused persons are of criminal antecedents and she apprehended that they might have given effect to some untoward incident towards her son.,

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In the affidavit filed in support of the bail application it has been stated that the applicants are innocent, they have been falsely implicated in the present case and they have no criminal history. It has further been stated in the affidavit that on 19.07.2022 itself the applicants' sister co-accused Priti Pal had lodged an F.I.R. at 16:04 hrs bearing F.I.R. No. 0366 of 2022 against her husband Ashwini Kumar Pal, mother in law Shyama pal and three sisters-in-law alleging that on 17th of July 2022 her husband had disrobed her, beaten her with a belt and turned her out in a public lane in a naked condition; he again pulled her inside the house and when his belt was broken, he had beaten her with another belt and made her consume 10 sleeping-pills. Priti Pal alleged that she regained consciousness on 19th of July 2022 and thereafter she had come to lodge the FIR.

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The Police has conducted investigation in furtherance of both the F.I.Rs. During investigation the investigating officer recorded statement of one Vinod Kumar Pal, who has taken a

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room in the applicants' house on rent. He stated that the applicant No. 1 had come to him on 19th of July 2022 at about 09.30 hrs and had borrowed his motorcycle. He was accompanied by one Shahrukh. The aforesaid persons had brought the applicants' brother-in-law Ashwani Pal on the motorcycle. The applicant No. 2 was also present in the house at that time and all these persons had beaten up Ashwini. The following day they had taken away an almirah in a loader to some place. He did not know as to what was there in the Almirah.

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Statement of the informant's daughter Shivani Pal was also recorded, who stated that since after the marriage, Priti Pal used to Harass her husband and used to threaten him in the name of his brothers. On 19.07.2022 some altercation took place between Priti pal and her husband and on 20.07.2022 the applicant no. 1 and Sharukh took away Ashwani Pal on a motorcycle and they had beaten him up and killed him. They put the dead body in an almirah and threw it in Indira canal.

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The State has filed a counter-affidavit opposing the bail application and copy of the statement of the applicant No. 1 Abhinav Pal has been annexed therewith, wherein he stated that on 19.07.2022 his sister co-accused Priti Pal told that her husband Ashwini Pal had beaten her; that he could not tolerate tears of his sister and he borrowed the motorcycle of a person, who runs a Puri shop in the neighbourhood of his house; he went to his sister's house along with his friend Shahrukh and brought his brother-in-law to his house, where his friend Suraj and brother Karan (applicant number 2) were present. All the persons present there had beaten his brother-in-law with a belt. His brother-in-law fell unconscious, and when he did not regain consciousness for a long time, they suspected that he had died.

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Upon this, they sent their sister to the Police Station, where she lodged an F.I.R. against her husband and his family members. They wrapped the dead-body in a polythene and kept it inside an almirah and on the following day, i.e. on 20.07.2022 they hired a loader vehicle for Rs.1700/-, loaded the almirah thereon along with a Counter of the shop and went to Indira Canal via Shahid Path and they threw away the dead-body at a secluded place.

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A similar statement has been given by the applicant No. 2, Shubham Pal alias Karan alias Shivam, but he stated that he had gone with the applicant No. 1, Shahrukh and Suraj only up to Awadh Chauraha and thereafter he went back and he did not know as to where did they throw the dead-body.

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A copy of the recovery-memo has also been annexed with the counter affidavit, wherein it is recorded that a shirt, PANCard of Ashwini Kumar and his e-labour card and another card of Krishna Associates were recovered from some bushes near Indira canal on the pointing out of the applicant no. 1 and the aforesaid things were identified by Shivani Pal, sister of Ashwini Kumar Pal. However, the dead-body could not be recovered.

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A supplementary counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of the respondent-state annexing therewith a copy of the relevant extract of case-diary bearing observations made on the basis of the Customer Authentication From (CAF) and the calldetail records of all the persons have also been mentioned therein. The mobile location of the mobile phone of the applicant No.1 has been traced through electronics surveillance and his mobile phone location corroborates his statement recorded under Section 161 CrPC. The mobile location was

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found at Sahara Colony, Rajajipuram, Lucknow at 8.55 a.m., from where the applicant is said to have hired a loader vehicle and it has been found at Vibhuti Khand, Lucknow and thereafter at Faizabad Road, Village Kamta, Post Chinhat, Lucknow, at 14:27 hrs. Thereafter, the mobile phone was switched off and when it was switched on at 18.58 hrs, its location was near RDSO.

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The learned counsel for the applicant has submitted that the dead-body of the deceased having not been recovered it cannot be said with certainty that Ashwini Pal has died and without the dead body having been recovered, the charge of Murder cannot be sustained. He has further submitted that it is recorded in the custodial statement of the applicant No.1 that the dead-body was thrown near the Canal in bushes, and not in the Canal and therefore non-recovery of the dead-body or any part thereof raises serious doubts against the prosecution case. He further submitted that the police could not trace the loader vehicle during investigation. The learned counsel for the applicant has further submitted that co-accused Priti Pal has been granted bail by means of an order dated 11th of October 2022 passed by this court in Criminal Misc. Bail application No. 11537 of 2022.

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Learned A.G.A., as also the learned counsel for the informant has vehemently opposed the prayer for bail. The learned A.G.A. has stated that the Police has submitted a final report in Case Crime No. 366 of 2022 lodged by the co-accused Puja Pal, as the allegations were found not to be established during investigation.

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I have considered the facts and circumstances of the case as well as the submissions made by the learned counsel for the applicants, learned Additional Government Advocate and the

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Learned counsel for the informant.

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What prima facie appears from the material available before the Court at this stage is that it is stated in the F.I.R. that mobile phone of the informant's son was switched off since afternoon of 19th of July 2022 and thereafter she repeatedly called her daughter-in-law Priti Pal on her mobile phone, but she did not take her call and she repeatedly disconnected it and thereafter she switched off her phone, which gave rise to a suspicion in the mind of the informant whereupon she sent her brother to gather information regarding her son. She further stated that she came to know that her daughter in law Priti Pal had called her brothers (applicants), who had beaten the informant's son and had taken him away on a motorcycle. The allegation of borrowing a motorcycle is supported by the statement of the independent witness Vinod Kumar Pal, who runs a Puri shop near the house of the accused persons and who stated that the applicant No. 1 had borrowed his motorcycle at about 9:30 on 19th of July 2022 and who further stated that the accused persons had brought their brother-in-law Ashwini Pal on the motorcycle, and that they had beaten up Ashwini and had taken away an almirah in a loader on the following day. The accused persons stated that they had beaten up Ashwani Pal and he fell unconscious and when he did not regain consciousness, they came to know that he had died. The accused persons stated that they had hidden the dead-body in an almirah and had taken the same away to a place near Indira Canal for disposing off the same. Witness Vinod Pal has stated that he had seen an almirah being taken in a loader.

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The aforesaid movement of the applicants is supported by the call-detail records and mobile-phone location of the applicant No. 1. Although the co-accused Priti Pal has been

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granted bail, it is stated in her bail-order that the learned A.G.A. was not in a position to show anything regarding evidence available against the aforesaid co-accused. It is not the position in the present case, as call-detail records and mobile-phone location of the applicant no. 1 has been annexed with the supplementary counter affidavit, which prima facie supports the prosecution case.

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Without making any further observation, which may effect the outcome of the trial, keeping in view the seriousness of the allegations against the applicants and the material collected during investigation, the aforesaid facts do not make out a case warranting exercise of discretion of this Court in favour of the applicants by enlarging them on bail.

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The bail-application is accordingly rejected .

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( Subhash Vidyarthi, J. )

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Order Date :- 18.4.2023 A.Nigam

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Digitally signed by :- ANUJ NIGAM High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench

Abhinav Pal Alias Nanoo and Another v. State of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. Home U.P. Lko.

Case brief

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What did the court decide?

Abhinav Pal Alias Nanoo and Another v. State of U.P. Thru. Addl. Chief Secy. Home U.P. Lko.

Case brief

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What did the court decide?

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