Ghulam Hyder vs The State
This matter arose from a petition for leave to appeal against the order of the High Court refusing post-arrest bail to the petitioner in a homicide case registered under the criminal law. The core legal question was whether the petitioner, who was alleged to have held the deceased along with four other co-accused while another co-accused fired a fatal shot, was entitled to post-arrest bail under the rule of further inquiry. The Supreme Court observed that the prosecution's account—wherein five persons clutched the deceased while a single co-accused fired a fatal shot at short range in the dark—invoked the possibility that a wider net was cast to implicate the entire family clan. The Court held that the necessity and plausibility of such facilitation without risk of accidental injury required further probe. Converting the petition into an appeal, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal and granted bail to the petitioner under Section 497(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 upon furnishing a bail bond.
- Does an allegation that multiple accused held a victim during a midnight shooting make out a case of further inquiry under Section 497(2) CrPC?
- Whether post-arrest bail can be granted when the prosecution casts a wider net to implicate an entire clan in a homicide case?
- Section 497, Code of Criminal Procedure 1898
- Section 497(2), Code of Criminal Procedure 1898
ORDER
Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed, J. The petitioner is in the array of accused in a case of homicide wherein one Niaz Ali was shot dead during the night of 11th December, 2020 within the precincts of Police Station B. Section Tando Allah Yar Khan. It is alleged that during the fateful night, the accused six in number, in the backdrop of a dispute over water turn, assaulted the deceased; solitary fatal shot is attributed to Azhar co-accused; remainder of the accused are blamed to have clutched the deceased whereafter he was hit on his forehead, bullet exiting from the rear. The petitioner has been declined bail lastly by the High Court vide impugned order dated 28.6.2021, leave to appeal wherefrom is being prayed for on the grounds that on stated facts the accusation called for further probe inasmuch as five persons could not have held the deceased without risking their own safety in the face of an incoming shot nor there was any necessity for such a dangerous exercise when, according to the prosecution itself, the deceased was allegedly within the reach of the accused targeting him from a short distance. The bottom line is that a wider net is cast to rope the entire clan in a midnight affair.
2. Heard. Record perused.
3. Be that as it may, though named in the crime report alongside others of the same brotherhood, the petitioner is assigned role of a facilitator by holding the deceased alongside four others; the question is as to whether in the facts and circumstances of the case as alleged by the complainant himself, such facilitation was at all required, that too, without incurring fatal risk of being unintendedly hit by the shot in the darkness and as such petitioner's culpability requires further probe within the contemplation of subsection 2 of section 497 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, paving way for his release on bail, particularly when his continuous detention is serving no useful purpose. The petition is converted into appeal and allowed; the appellant is admitted to bail on his furnishing bond in the sum of Rs.500,000/- with one surety in the like amount to the satisfaction of the learned trial Court.