Dismissed¶58

Rajinder Singh v. State of Hp

Himachal Pradesh HC8 May 2025CRMPM/880/2025

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

Successive/second regular bail application dismissed — entertainable only on change of circumstances, not by way of review; speedy-trial plea rejected as trial progressing normally (charges 07.05.2024; 4/25 witnesses examined; listing 09.07.2025–16.07.2025). Offences: IPC Ss. 342, 328, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 201; FIR 178/2022 P.S. Sadar Solan (Hotel Himani drugging/theft; Lorazepam, Tramadol, SFSL Junga); related FIR 208/2022 P.S. Sadar Bazar Merrut, U.P. Case: Cr.MP(M) No. 880 of 2025, [2025:HHC:13251], decided 08.05.2025 by Rakesh Kainthla, J.; liberty reserved to re-approach on trial delay.

What did the court decide?

Once an earlier bail application has been dismissed, a subsequent bail petition can be considered only on the basis of a change in circumstances; the Court cannot review its earlier order. ¶56

Rajinder Singh Vs State of Hp — Cheating and Forgery | Himachal Pradesh HC (2025)

What the court decided

AI extract

Outcome

Dismissed

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Issue for consideration

Whether the petitioner, whose earlier bail petition (Cr.MP(M) No. 2171 of 2023) was dismissed on 09.11.2023, is entitled to regular bail in the absence of a change in circumstances. +1 more

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Court's answer

Once an earlier bail application has been dismissed, a subsequent bail petition can be considered only on the basis of a change in circumstances; the Court cannot review its earlier order.

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Ratio / Principle

The plea of delay and violation of the right to speedy trial was rejected: defence counsel sought adjournments on 22.09.2023, 2.11.2023, 06.12.2023 and 03.01.2024, charges were framed on 07.05.2024, four witnesses have been examined thereafter, and the trial court has listed the matter from 09.07.2025 to 16.07.2025, showing the trial is progressing normally.

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Detailed headnote1 paragraphs

High Court of Himachal Pradesh, Shimla (Rakesh Kainthla, J.; decision 08.05.2025; not approved for reporting) dismisses the successive regular bail petition Cr.MP(M) No. 880 of 2025 filed by Rajinder Singh, accused in F.I.R. No. 178 of 2022, P.S. Sadar Solan, under Sections 342, 328, 420, 465, 471, 468 and 201 IPC (status report: persons found unconscious in Hotel Himani; fake Aadhaar used; Lorazepam and Tramadol found in blood/urine samples tested at SFSL Junga; challan presented). His earlier bail petition, Cr.MP(M) No. 2171 of 2023, was dismissed on 09.11.2023. Relying on State of Maharashtra v. Captain Buddhikota Subha Rao, State of M.P. v. Kajad, Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan @ Pappu Yadav, State of T.N. v. S.A. Raja, Prasad Shrikant Purohit v. State of Maharashtra and Ajay Rajaram Hinge v. State of Maharashtra, the Court holds that a successive bail application is entertainable only upon a (substantial/material) change in circumstances and cannot amount to a review of the earlier order. The plea that delay in trial violated the right to speedy trial was rejected: adjournments were sought by defence counsel, charges were framed on 07.05.2024, four of 25 cited prosecution witnesses stand examined, and the matter is listed from 09.07.2025 to 16.07.2025. Petition dismissed, with liberty to approach the Court again if the trial is not concluded within a reasonable time; observations confined to disposal of the petition.

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2025:HHC:13251

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA

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Cr.MP(M) No. 880 of 2025 Reserved on: 01.05.2025. Date of Decision: 08.05.2025.

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Rajinder Singh	Versus	.…Petitioner
State of H.P.		....Respondent

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Coram

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Hon’ble Mr Justice Rakesh Kainthla , Judge.

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Whether approved for reporting?¹ No

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For the petitioner	:	Mr. Pavind Anirudh Sh	er Advoca arma, Ad	te, vice vocate.	Mr.
For the respondent/State.	:	Mr. Lo	kender	Kutle	hria,
		Additional	Advoca	te Ge	neral
		with HC.	Jaivanti	No.	81
		P.S.Sadar,	District	Solan,	H.P.

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Rakesh Kainthla, Judge

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The petitioner has filed the present petition for seeking regular bail. It has been asserted that the police had registered F.I.R. No. 178 of 2022, dated 14.09.2022, for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 342, 328, 420, 465, 471, 468 and 201 of IPC, at P.S. Sadar Solan, District Solan, H.P. The petitioner is innocent, and he was falsely implicated. He will join

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1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes.

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the investigation as and when directed to do so. The petitioner had earlier filed a bail petition, which was registered as Cr.MP.(M) No. 2171 of 2023, and was dismissed on 09.11.2023. An F.I.R. No. 208 of 2022, dated 08.12.2022, was also registered against the petitioner at Police Station Sadar Bazar Merrut, U.P. Hence, the petition.

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The petition is opposed by filing a status report stating that telephonic information was received on 14.09.2022, that three women and five men were found unconscious in different rooms of Hotel Himani. The Police recorded the statement of Ramesh Kumar, who stated that one masked person demanded rooms on 11.09.2022. He produced an Aadhaar card of Sanjeev Kumar. Rooms No. 202, 203, 205, 206 and 102 were allotted to him. One lady called the caretaker, Nitu, from Room No. 205 and asked him to open the door. The rooms were checked, and persons were found unconscious. Some bottles of cold drinks and some boxes of sweets were found. The staff of the Hotel had not supplied these articles. Sanjeev Kumar had taken away the key after locking the persons. The police conducted the investigation and checked the CCTV Footage. The copy of the Aadhar Card was found to be fake. Sanjeev Kumar had taken the mobile phone and ATM cards of the victim and absconded. Information was given by the police of Police Station

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Meerut that the present petitioner was arrested in FIR No.208/2022, dated 08.12.2022, under Sections 420, 328, 467, 468 and 471 of IPC, who disclosed that he had committed the offence at Solan. The production warrant was obtained. The petitioner was interrogated. The petitioner identified the rooms and the place where the mobile phone was thrown. Three keys to the rooms were found in possession of the petitioner. Blood and urine samples were sent to SFSL Junga, and Lorazepam and Tramadol were found in the samples. The challan has been presented against the petitioner. The matter is fixed for recording of the statement of the prosecution’s witnesses w.e.f. 09.07.2025 till 16.07.2025. The prosecution has cited 25 witnesses, out of whom four witnesses have been examined, and 21 witnesses are yet to be examined.

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I have heard Mr. Pavinder, learned vice counsel, Mr. Anirudh Sharma, Advocate, for the petitioner and Mr. Lokender Kutlehria, learned Additional Advocate General, for the respondent/State.

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Mr. Pavinder, learned vice counsel representing the petitioner, submitted that the petitioner is innocent and he was falsely implicated. There is a delay in the trial of the petitioner

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and right of speedy trial of the petitioner is being violated. Hence, he prayed that the petitioner be released on bail.

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Learned Additional Advocate General submitted that

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the earlier bail petition filed by the petitioner was dismissed. There is no change in the circumstances, and the petitioner is not entitled to the concession of bail. Hence, he prayed that the present petition be dismissed.

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I have given considerable thought to the submissions made at the bar and have gone through the records carefully.

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It is undisputed that earlier the petitioner had filed a bail petition bearing Cr.MP (M) No. 2171 of 2023, which was dismissed on 09.11.2023. It was held in the State of Maharashtra Vs. Captain Buddhikota Subha Rao (1989) Suppl. 2 SCC 605, that once a bail application has been dismissed, a subsequent bail application can only be considered if there is a change of circumstances. It was observed:

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“Once that application was rejected, there was no question of granting a similar prayer. That is virtually overruling the earlier decision without there being a change in the fact situation. And when we speak of change, we mean a substantial one, which has a direct impact on the earlier decision and not merely cosmetic changes, which are of little or no consequence. 'Between the two orders, there was a gap of only two days, and it is nobody's case that during these two days, drastic changes had taken place

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necessitating the release of the respondent on bail. Judicial discipline, propriety and comity demanded that the impugned order should not have been passed, reversing all earlier orders, including the one rendered by Puranik, J., only a couple of days before, in the absence of any substantial change in the fact situation. In such cases, it is necessary to act with restraint and circumspection so that the process of the Court is not abused by a litigant and an impression does not gain ground that the litigant has either successfully avoided one judge or selected another to secure an order which had hitherto eluded him.

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8. Similar is the judgment delivered in State of M.P. v.

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Kajad, (2001) 7 SCC 673 , wherein it was observed: -

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It has further to be noted that the factum of the rejection of his earlier bail application bearing Miscellaneous Case No. 2052 of 2000 on 5-6-2000 has not been denied by the respondent. It is true that successive bail applications are permissible under the changed circumstances. But without the change in the circumstances, the second application would be deemed to be seeking a review of the earlier judgment, which is not permissible under criminal law as has been held by this Court in Hari Singh Mann v. Harbhajan Singh Bajwa [(2001) 1 SCC 169: 2001 SCC (Cri) 113] and various other judgments.

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Similarly, it was held in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v.

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Rajesh Ranjan @ Pappu Yadav (2004) 7 SCC 528, that where an earlier bail application has been rejected, the Court has to consider the rejection of the earlier bail application and then consider why the subsequent bail application should be allowed. It was held:

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“11. In regard to cases where earlier bail applications have been rejected, there is a further onus on the court to

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consider the subsequent application for grant of bail by noticing the grounds on which earlier bail applications have been rejected and after such consideration, if the court is of the opinion that bail has to be granted then the said court will have to give specific reasons why in spite of such earlier rejection the subsequent bail application should be granted.”

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A similar view was taken in State of T.N. v. S.A. Raja,

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(2005) 8 SCC 380 , wherein it was observed:

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When a learned Single Judge of the same court had denied bail to the respondent for certain reasons, and that order was unsuccessfully challenged before the appellate forum, without there being any major change of circumstances, another fresh application should not have been dealt with within a short span of time unless there were valid grounds giving rise to a tenable case for bail. Of course, the principles of res judicata are not applicable to bail applications, but the repeated filing of bail applications without there being any change of circumstances would lead to bad precedents.”

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This position was reiterated in Prasad Shrikant Purohit

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v. State of Maharashtra (2018) 11 SCC 458 , wherein it was

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observed:

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“30. Before concluding, we must note that though an accused has a right to make successive applications for the grant of bail, the court entertaining such subsequent bail applications has a duty to consider the reasons and grounds on which the earlier bail applications were rejected. In such cases, the court also has a duty to record the fresh grounds, which persuade it to take a view different from the one taken in the earlier applications.”

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It was held in Ajay Rajaram Hinge v. State of

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Maharashtra, 2023 SCC OnLine Bom 1551, that a successive bail

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application can be filed if there is a material change in the circumstances, which means a change in the facts or the law. It was observed:

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“7. It needs to be noted that the right to file successive bail applications accrues to the applicant only on the existence of a material change in circumstances. The sine qua non for filing subsequent bail applications is a material change in circumstance. A material change in circumstances settled by law is a change in the fact situation or law which requires the earlier view to be interfered with or where the earlier finding has become obsolete. However, a change in circumstance has no bearing on the salutary principle of judicial propriety that successive bail application needs to be decided by the same Judge on the merits, if available at the place of sitting. There needs to be clarity between the power of a judge to consider the application and a person's right based on a material change in circumstances. A material change in circumstance creates in a person accused of an offence the right to file a fresh bail application. But the power to decide such subsequent application operates in a completely different sphere, unconnected with the facts of a case. Such power is based on the well-settled and judicially recognized principle that if successive bail applications on the same subject are permitted to be disposed of by different Judges, there would be conflicting orders, and the litigant would be pestering every Judge till he gets an order to his liking resulting in the credibility of the Court and the confidence of the other side being put in issue and there would be wastage of Court's time and that judicial discipline requires that such matter must be placed before the same Judge, if he is available, for orders. The satisfaction of material change in circumstances needs to be adjudicated by the same Judge who had earlier decided the application. Therefore, the same Judge needs to adjudicate whether there is a change in circumstance as claimed by the applicant, which entitles him to file a subsequent bail application.”

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Therefore, the present bail petition can only be considered on the basis of the change in the circumstances, and it is not permissible to review the order passed by the Court.

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It was submitted that there is a delay in the progress of the trial of the petitioner, and his right to a speedy trial is being violated. This submission is not acceptable. Perusal of certified copies of order-sheets shows that learned defence counsel sought adjournments on 22.09.2023, 2.11.2023, 06.12.2023 and 03.01.2024. The Court framed the charges on 07.05.2024. The status report shows that four witnesses have been examined after framing the charges, which shows that the trial is progressing normally. The status report further shows that now the matter is listed before the learned Trial Court w.e.f. 09.07.2025 till 16.07.2025, which shows that the learned Trial Court is anxious to dispose of the matter expeditiously, and the plea that there is a delay in the progress of the trial, due to which the petitioner is entitled to the concession of bail, is not acceptable.

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Consequently, the present petition fails, and the same is dismissed. However, the petitioner is at liberty to approach the Court in case the trial is not concluded within a reasonable time.

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