Through this petition under Section 498 Cr.P.C. Asim Khan petitioner has sought pre-arrest bail in case FIR No.211/15 dated 22.03.205, under Section 440 PPC registered at Police Station Ghaziabad, District Lahore.
2. At the very outset, it is worth mentioning that initially this pre-arrest bail application was filed by three petitioners out of whom application to the extent of Syed Shahid Hussain and Shahid Hussain petitioners No.1 and 2 respectively was disposed off while granting them protective bail to get decision on merits from the Court of first instance, whereas petition to the extent of present petitioner was admitted for regular hearing.
3. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner, learned Deputy Prosecutor General and learned counsel for the complainant and have also gone through the record with their able assistance. This is bail before arrest and only tentative assessment is permissible at this stage.
Without going deeper into the merits of the case it has been noticed that the petitioner is nominated in FIR with the allegation of firing, however, during the course of investigation, it surfaced on record that the petitioner was merely present at the spot empty handed and in this view of the eventuality, there is no probability of the recovery of weapon of alleged offence from the petitioner. Even otherwise, keeping the contents of FIR in juxtaposition to the outcome of investigation, prima facie the case of the prosecution against the petitioner has become the case of two versions i.e. one put forward by the complainant and the other came on record during investigation and which version is correct shall be determined by the learned trial court after recording evidence. Reliance can easily be placed upon 2012 SCM R 1137 (Ehsan Ullah vs. The State) wherein it has been held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of Pakistan as under:- "This shows that in the present case the prosecution itself has two versions vis--vis the petitioner, first of the complainant party according to which the petitioner was present at the spot and had resorted to firing and second of the investigating agency according to which the petitioner was not present at the spot and he was abetting his co-accused form behind the scene. All these considerations surely render the case against the petitioner one of further inquiry into his guilt."
The offence with which the petitioner has been charged does not fall within prohibitory clause of Section 497 Cr.P.C. Admittedly, the petitioner is previous non-convict. He has already joined the investigation, which is complete to his extent, therefore, no useful purpose would be served by sending him behind the bars.
3. For what has been discussed above, false implication of the petitioner by the complainant by widening the net cannot be ruled out. Resultantly, the ad-interim pre-arrest bail already granted to Asim Khan petitioner vide this Court's order dated 15.04.2015 is hereby confirmed subject to his furnishing bail bonds in the sum of Rs.50,000/- (Rupees fifty thousand only) with one surety in the like amount to the satisfaction of learned Trial Court/Area Magistrate.
4. The observations made above are tentative in nature and are strictly confined to the decision of this bail petition only.