Himachal Pradesh High Court
Reserved On: 01.05.2025 vs State Of H.P on 8 May, 2025
2025:HHC:13251
IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA
Cr.MP(M) No. 880 of 2025
Reserved on: 01.05.2025.
Date of Decision: 08.05.2025.
Rajinder Singh ....Petitioner
Versus
State of H.P. ....Respondent
Coram
Hon’ble Mr Justice Rakesh Kainthla, Judge.
Whether approved for reporting?1 No
For the petitioner : Mr. Pavinder Advocate, vice Mr.
Anirudh Sharma, Advocate.
For the respondent/State. : Mr. Lokender Kutlehria,
Additional Advocate General
with HC. Jaivanti No. 81
P.S.Sadar, District Solan, H.P.
______________________________________
Rakesh Kainthla, Judge
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
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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Learned Additional Advocate General submitted that
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.
6. I have given considerable thought to the submissions
made at the bar and have gone through the records carefully.
7. 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:
“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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2025:HHC:13251necessitating 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.
8. Similar is the judgment delivered in State of M.P. v.
Kajad, (2001) 7 SCC 673, wherein it was observed: –
8. 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.
9. Similarly, it was held in Kalyan Chandra Sarkar v.
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:
“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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2025:HHC:13251consider 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.”
10. A similar view was taken in State of T.N. v. S.A. Raja,
(2005) 8 SCC 380, wherein it was observed:
9. 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.”
11. This position was reiterated in Prasad Shrikant Purohit
v. State of Maharashtra (2018) 11 SCC 458, wherein it was
observed:
“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.”
12. It was held in Ajay Rajaram Hinge v. State of
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:
“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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13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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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16. The observations made here-in-before shall remain
confined to the disposal of the petition and will have no bearing,
whatsoever, on the merits of the case.
(Rakesh Kainthla)
Judge
08th May, 2025
(ravinder)
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