The Allahabad High Court has rejected the bail plea of police officer Krishna Kumar Sharma, accused in the Bikru murder case of Kanpur.
A single-judge bench of Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery passed this order while hearing a Criminal Misc Bail Application filed by KK Sharma Alias Krishna Kumar Sharma.
The applicant before the Court is a police officer. First bail application of applicant was rejected by the order dated 21.09.2021.
Second bail application of the applicant was rejected by an order dated 12.04.2023.
The Court ordered,
In pursuance of the order dated 25.06.2024 of the Court Trial Court has submitted a status report dated 05.07.2024 that testimony of 2 witnesses out of proposed 102 witnesses have already been recorded.
According to Manish Goyal, AAG some more witnesses have been examined.
Counsel for the applicant submitted that in testimony of prosecution witnesses recorded so far, no role has been assigned to the applicant that he has passed the information of raid to the main accused (who died later on).
He further submitted that some of the accused who were also not named in the FIR have been granted bail and applicant is in jail since 08.07.2020 i.e more than 4 years and trial is not likely to be concluded within a short period.
AGA has opposed the above submissions and referred to the above referred reasons mentioned while rejecting previous bail applications of the applicant.
Senior Counsel submitted that at this stage the Court may not go into the nature of the evidence, since material witnesses are still to be examined which are about 22 in number.
He further submitted that still there is a likelihood that in case bail is granted to the applicant, he will try to influence the witnesses.
“I have considered the above submissions as well as that the applicant is in jail for the last 4 years, however, considering the role assigned to the applicant as well as the above referred observations of this Court, there are very serious charges against the applicant. Being a police officer, he has misused the trust which has led to the death of his colleagues. The trial is proceeding, witnesses are subject to detailed cross examination. As rightly pointed out by AAG for State that at this stage, the Court may not venture into evidence led before the Trial Court.
Considering the nature of allegations and nature of occurrence the period behind the bars undergone by the applicant cannot be considered as a prolonged detention,” the Court observed.
Accordingly, the Court rejected the application with an observation that the applicant will have a liberty to file fresh bail application, after a period of 6 months, along with status of trial.