"Unbecoming Of A Fair Litigant": Allahabad High Court Censures Woman Who Protested In Courtroom Against Grant Of Bail To Accused

The Allahabad High Court last week censured the conduct of a woman who protested in the courtroom against the grant of bail to an accused. Noting that she was purportedly from the informant's side, the bench of Justice Siddharth called her conduct to be unbecoming of a fair litigant.

Essentially, when the Court granted bail to accused Sapna, a woman, who was standing in court room protested in loud voice and was taken out forcibly by the lawyers and litigants. Not just that, she created lots of disturbance outside the court as well, the Court noted. 

This incident took place on September 23 before the bench of Justice Siddharth when it was dealing with the bail plea of one Sapna who was arrested in December 2019 in connection with the murder of one Vivek Kumar Gupta.

The accused was booked for the murder of Gupta on the basis of information received from an informer that the applicant, her husband and another co-accused were responsible for the murder of the deceased. 

Before the Court, her counsel argued that the dead body of the deceased was not recovered on the pointing of the applicant and her signatures were forcibly obtained on the recovery memo. The cause of the death of the deceased was not ascertained in post-mortem nor time of death was ascertained.

It was further contended that the applicant had been implicated in this case only on the basis of her confessional statement. The recovery of one spade and one Sabble was allegedly made from the pointing out of co-accused and that no blood stains were found thereon. It was also argued that the accused was implicated in this case only because she is the wife of the co-accused.

After considering the rival submissions, the court observed that the entire prosecution case was based on the confessional statements of the applicant and the co-accused and that even in the confessional statement of the applicant, the role of causing the murder of the deceased had not been assigned to her.

Against this backdrop, and further noting that the trial is not likely to be concluded in near future and that the applicant is in jail along with her two years old son, the Court decided to grant her bail on the condition of her furnishing a personal bond and two sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned.

Case title - Sapna v. State of U.P. [CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 24592 of 2020]

Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (AB) 454

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