Delhi High Court: A Single Judge Bench comprising of Mukta Gupta, J. allowed a bail application holding that the petitioner was entitled to default bail as the investigating agency failed to file chargesheet within 60 days.
The petitioner was alleged to be driving a white colour car at high speed without a license in an intoxicated state. On the fateful night, he lost control and rammed his car over the footpath. The car hit a tree and turned upside down. Four people, including the complainant and three other sleeping on the footpath, were injured. They were taken to hospital where two them were declared brought dead. The petitioner was arrested on 9-9-2018 and has been in custody since then. He filed an application seeking bail before the trial court. Besides the merits, he urged additional ground that he was entitled to default bail as chargesheet was not filed in the case. However, the trial court dismissed the application on the ground that it could not at that stage from an opinion whether the offence committed was under Section 304-I or 304-II IPC. Offence under Section 304-II IPC being punishable upto life imprisonment and 90 days from the date of arrest having not elapsed, the petitioner was not entitled to default bail. Aggrieved thereby, he filed the present petition.
The petitioner who was represented by R.K. Wadhwa, Vishesh Wadhwa and Meena Duggal, Advocates submitted that on the face of allegations, it could not be held that he committed the offence with any intention and at best knowledge could be attributed to him.
The High Court perused the record and observed that the facts of the case spoke for themselves that at best what was attributable to petitioner was the knowledge that his act was likely to cause the death of people sleeping on the footpath, in which case the offence was under Section 304-II. Such offence is punishable with imprisonment which may extend to 10 years. After referring to Rakesh Kumar Paul v. State of Assam, (2017) 15 SCC 67, the Court held that since a period of 60 days has elapsed from the date of arrest of the petitioner and no chargesheet was filed by the investigating agency, he was entitled to default bail. Consequently, the petitioner was granted bail subject to the conditions imposed. [Devesh Kumar v. State, 2018 SCC OnLine Del 13073, dated 21-12-2018]
