The High Court of Jharkhand, in a significant ruling on the maintainability of successive anticipatory bail applications, has rejected a third such plea filed by Harish Kumar Pathak. The Court, presided over by Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi, held that there were no fresh grounds to entertain the application, as the issues raised had already been considered in two previously rejected applications. The case concerns allegations including culpable homicide not amounting to murder, with the Court emphasizing the principles of judicial propriety and the limited scope for re-agitating bail pleas without new circumstances.
Background of the Case
The petitioner, Harish Kumar Pathak, was seeking pre-arrest bail in connection with Narayanpur P.S. Case No. 154/2016. The case was initially registered under Sections 354, 341, 342, 323, 325, 307, 504, 506, read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (I.P.C.). Subsequently, Section 304 of the I.P.C. (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) was added on May 17, 2018.
This was the petitioner’s third attempt to secure anticipatory bail from the High Court. His first application (A.B.A. No. 4304 of 2018) was rejected on December 18, 2018. A second application (A.B.A. No. 14 of 2019) met the same fate on November 26, 2019. Following these rejections, Mr. Pathak filed a petition (Cr.M.P. No. 1664 of 2019) seeking to quash the entire criminal proceeding, which was ultimately dismissed as withdrawn on August 5, 2025.
Arguments of the Petitioner
Appearing for the petitioner, Advocate Mr. Indrajit Sinha contended that a new cause of action had arisen, justifying the present application. He asserted that Mr. Pathak had not committed any offence and that the allegations in the First Information Report (F.I.R.) were “false and concocted.”
Mr. Sinha argued that the petitioner had been exonerated in a departmental proceeding, which should be considered in his favor. He also drew the Court’s attention to the medical report, submitting that the cause of the deceased’s death was not a “brutal assault” but rather an “illness.” Furthermore, he referred to certain paragraphs in the State’s counter-affidavit filed in the earlier quashing petition, which he claimed were beneficial to the petitioner’s case.
Arguments of the State
Mr. Pankaj Kumar, the learned Special Public Prosecutor, vehemently opposed the bail application. He submitted that the chargesheet against the petitioner was filed based on investigations conducted by both the local police and the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.).
The State’s counsel highlighted irregularities in the records, noting that the deceased was arrested on October 3, 2016, whereas the date of arrest was officially recorded as October 4, 2016. He also pointed out that the station diary lacked the signature of the competent authority. The core of his argument was that all points being raised by the petitioner’s counsel were the “subject matter in the earlier anticipatory bail applications” and there was “nothing new to file fresh anticipatory bail application.”
Court’s Analysis and Observations
Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi began his analysis by noting the “admitted position” that two prior anticipatory bail applications had been rejected by a Co-ordinate Bench of the Court. The judgment emphasized that the medical report, a key point in the petitioner’s argument, had been “considered by the Co-ordinate Bench in A.B.A. No. 4304 of 2018 elaborately” before the plea was rejected.
The Court then deliberated on the legal principles governing successive anticipatory bail applications. It observed that the language of Section 482 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) does not permit a revival of the “reasons to believe” of apprehension of arrest once an application has been rejected. The Court stated, “Upon making a close survey of the section 482 of the BNSS, there could be no slim doubt that the words and languages employed in the Section do not even remotely foreshadow that application for anticipatory bail, could be harvested as there could be no revival of ‘reasons to believe’ of apprehension of arrest in the subsequent application when the earlier application has suffered rejection.”
The judgment distinguished the scope of anticipatory bail (Section 482) from regular bail for an accused in custody (Section 483), noting that the latter allows for repeated prayers on new grounds.
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Mahadolal v. Administrator General, the Court underscored the importance of judicial decorum and certainty in law. It quoted the apex court’s caution that judicial anarchy would result if judges of co-ordinate jurisdiction began overruling one another’s decisions. The judgment reproduced the observation: “Judicial decoram no less than legal propriety forms the basis of ‘judicial procedure’ and ‘if one thing is more necessary in law than any other thing it is the quality or certainty’ and that ‘that quality would totally disappear if Judges of co-ordinate jurisdiction in the High Court start overruling one another’s decisions’.”
Decision
Concluding its analysis, the High Court found no merit in the fresh application. It reiterated that a chargesheet has been submitted and all arguments presented by the petitioner had been dealt with in the previous proceedings.
Finding no new grounds, the Court passed the final order: “There is no fresh ground to entertain this anticipatory bail application. Accordingly, this anticipatory bail application is rejected.”
