UP HC grants anticipatory bail to man booked under cow slaughter laws

Lucknow: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has granted anticipatory bail to an accused booked under the cow slaughter Act, saying the evidence cited is shoddy.

Passing the order recently, a bench of Justice Mohd Faiz Alam Khan observed that the case was a glaring example of misuse of the penal law as neither the prohibited animal nor its flesh had been recovered from the possession of the accused or from the spot, and only a rope and some amount of cow dung had been collected by the investigating officer.

In its order, the bench also added, “The duty of the State is to ensure fair investigation which in the considered opinion of this court has not been done in the instant case.”

Hence, the bench said that the order be placed before the DGP for taking necessary action in order to remind the investigating officers of their duty to ensure fair investigation in all criminal cases in general and in the cases pertaining to cow slaughter in particular.

The bench passed the order allowing the anticipatory bail plea of Jadagi alias Najimuddin. His lawyer had pleaded that the applicant was falsely implicated by Sitapur police in the case.

“No prohibited animal or any meat of progeny of cow has been recovered and the investigating officer has only collected the cow dung found on the spot and has sent the same for forensic investigation and during the course of investigation, a report has also been submitted by the Forensic Lab, Mahanagar, Lucknow that cow dung could not be examined,” argued the petitioner’s counsel Narendra Gupta.

In its order, the bench also clarified that that all the observations contained in the order were only for disposal of the instant anticipatory bail application and would not affect the trial proceedings in any manner.