This matter concerns a petition for pre-arrest bail filed by the petitioner, accused of violating the prosecutrix, Nadia Bibi, in District Muzaffargarh. The petitioner had previously filed a bail application before the Lahore High Court, which was withdrawn, followed by a subsequent application that was dismissed in limine. The core legal question before the Supreme Court was whether an accused, having withdrawn a prior bail petition, is entitled to file a second bail petition without demonstrating a fresh ground that accrued after the initial withdrawal. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, holding that the withdrawal of a bail petition, even if described as simpliciter, constitutes an abandonment of the plea. The Court affirmed that an accused can only maintain a subsequent bail petition upon the emergence of a fresh ground that was not available or abandoned during the first attempt. Consequently, the Court ruled that a second attempt at bail is impermissible in the absence of a newly accrued ground, as withdrawal is typically a tactical maneuver to avoid an impending dismissal.
1. Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed, J.- The petitioner, blamed to have violated Nadia Bibi, prosecutrix, inside her home, located within the precincts of Police Station Jatoi, District Muzaffargarh, on 23.5.2021, unsuccessfully attempted for bail in anticipation to his arrest, first, through Criminal Miscellaneous No.7079-B/2021, dismissed as withdrawn before a learned Judge-in-Chamber of the Lahore High Court at Multan Bench; earlier dismissal, notwithstanding, he once again applied through Criminal Miscellaneous No. 7752-B/2021, dismissed vide impugned order dated 01.11.2021, by the learned Judge in limine.
2. Confronted with petitioner's choice to withdraw the motion by his own election, the learned counsel pleaded that withdrawal being simpliciter without adjudication on merits of the case did not stand in impediment to re-hearing of the plea; an argument found by us as entirely beside the mark. It is by now well settled that an accused can maintain a subsequent bail petition, at post arrest stage, only on the strength of a fresh ground, accrued after dismissal of his first plea. It has been held by this Court in the case titled The State through Advocate General N.W.F.P. vs. Zubair Ahmed and 4 others (PLD 1986 SC 173) that a ground earlier available but abandoned cannot be received as a fresh ground and, thus, consequences of withdrawal of a bail petition, made at any stage of hearing, cannot be quantified nor viewed as simpliciter and as such does not allow space for a second attempt in the absence of a newly accrued ground. For all intents and purposes, it is an abandonment, resorted to, more often than not, in the face of an impending dismissal. After withdrawal of a pre-arrest bail petition, exclusively maintained on the consideration of mala fide, hardly there is an occasion for a somersault. Petition fails. Leave declined.