The Supreme Court on Monday refused to grant bail to a man who had fled from custody soon after being pronounced guilty by a Bihar court in an Arms Act case.
“You cannot be trusted,” said a bench of justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose as it declined bail to Binod Sah, who was arrested by the Bihar police in 2004 during a raid at a hotel in Araria district. Sah had approached the top court against rejection of bail by the Patna high court on January 10 this year. Although he had spent over 3 years in jail as part of his eight-year sentence in the Arms Act case, the HC noted the fact that he fled from custody soon after he was convicted by the trial court. This fact came to haunt him before the top court too.
Dealing with his appeal seeking bail, the bench said, “You ran away after hearing the order of conviction. The trial court order clearly states that due to the fact that the accused ran away from judicial custody the hearing on the sentence had to be deferred. You cannot be trusted in this situation.”
The Court was referring to the Araria district court order of December 20, 2020 when Sah was convicted in the Arms Act case. On hearing that he will now be sentenced for the crime, Sah fled from the Court and remained absconding. On January 19, 2021 the trial court sentenced him to eight years rigorous imprisonment. Following this order, after warrants were issued against Sah. He surrendered before the trial court on February 4, 2021 following which he has remained in jail.
Advocate Ashutosh Kumar who appeared for Sah told the top court that the petitioner had a good case on merit as other accused in the case are also out on bail. Kumar further stated that Sah had no past criminal antecedents and even during trial he had remained on bail.
But the Court put to Kumar, “High Court has rightly refused to release you on bail during the pendency of the appeal as you ran away from the courtroom,” as it dismissed Sah’s petition.
The case related to an incident in September 2004. Sah was dining with his friends at a hotel in Araria. As per Sah’s petition, some miscreants entered the hotel at the same time and the police party conducted a raid at the hotel to arrest them. Sah claimed that he was wrongly arrested by the police claiming to be one among the miscreants. The appeal filed by Sah challenging the conviction is still pending before the Patna high court.