Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: July 15, 2022 at 17:55 IST
Arshom PM, the state secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), was recently denied bail by the Kerala High Court after he was arrested for violating the court’s bail conditions [Arshom PM v. State of Kerala].
According to Justice Viju Abraham, Arshom is not entitled for statutory bail under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure because he violated the conditions of the bail order for having being involved 12 crimes after the bail was granted, not because the investigation could not be finished in the allotted time.
Arshom PM and another person were arrested in 2019 in relation with a crime alleging that the two trespassed into the de-facto complainant’s rented home with the intent to commit culpable homicide and then attacked him with lethal weapons, inflicting injuries on him in the process.
After spending 56 days in custody, the High Court released him on bail with a few conditions, one of which being that he couldn’t be involved in any other crimes while out on bail.
The complainant sought that the bail be cancelled moved to the High Court in February 2022. Noting that the petitioner had violated the said condition, the Court granted the same. In June, he was remanded to custody.
It was argued, relying on the judgment inKadavi Ranjith v. State of Kerala, that even statutory bail given in accordance with Section 167(2)could be revoked under Section 439(2) CrPC if the accused misuse the freedom granted by the bail order.
The Court agreed with the respondents’ arguments that when the investigating agency fails to finish the investigation within the allotted time frame, statutory bail under Section 167(2) CrPC is granted.
The petitioner is not being held in custody as a result of any latches on the part of the investigating agency, the court said, despite the fact that a charge sheet has not yet been laid in the instant case, which started almost 4 years ago.
The Court accordingly rejected the bail application.