The Supreme Court canceled regular bail granted to an accused by the Gujarat High Court on various grounds and display of illegal weapons and illicit wealth on social media was one of them.

While taking cognizance of the photographs put up by the accused in his Instagram handle, the Supreme Court noted that the High Court while grating bail had not considered factors like "... Respondent No.2 has been allegedly displaying the stock of illegal weapons and illicit wealth on social media platform (Instagram) ..."

The bench of Justices Suryakant and Arvind Kumar also held that "the factors like (i) Respondent No. 2 was allegedly absconding and he was arrested from Mumbai on 23.02.2023 (ii) Respondent No.2 has criminal antecedents (iii) Respondent No.2 has been allegedly displaying the stock of illegal weapons and illicit wealth on social media platform (Instagram) or that (iv) Respondent No.2 appears to have allegedly threatened some of the witnesses etc., have not been considered by the High Court while granting bail to him."

The Senior Advocate Kaustav Paul argued that the grounds mentioned in the order passed by the High Court are not tenable since the High Court in a murder trial case held that the case is triable by Magistrate. The Supreme Court then held:-

"It appears to us that while releasing respondent No.2 on bail, the High Court was primarily swayed by the facts which it initially noticed in para 5 of the impugned order. Besides those facts, no other reason emanating out of the allegations contained in the FIR or the investigation report has been assigned. As regard to the facts noticed by the High Court in para 5 of its order, the same were inadvertently quoted and the High Court has subsequently deleted para 5 of its order."

The matter was remanded back to the High Court to decide in the light of these observations and protected the accused till the decision of the High Court.

The Complainant was represented by Sr. Adv. Kaustav Paul assisted by AOR Rishi Matoliya and Adv. Swati Ghildiyal represented the State of Gujarat and the accused was represented through Advocate Rishabh Parikh.

Case Details:-

CRIMINAL APPEAL No.1513 OF 2023
(Arising out of SLP(Crl.)No.11502 of 2022)
BHARATBHAI VELABHAI VARCHAND … APPELLANT
Versus
STATE OF GUJARAT & ANR. … RESPONDENTS

Click here to read/download the order