The Jharkhand High Court at Ranchi on Wednesday refused to grant anticipatory bail to Harish Kumar Pathak, a 58-year-old resident of Adityapur, who feared arrest in a 2016 case involving charges of assault and culpable homicide. The bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi held that the petitioner’s repeated attempt to secure pre-arrest protection was not maintainable in the absence of new grounds.
Background
The case traces back to Narayanpur Police Station Case No. 154 of 2016, where Pathak and others were accused under sections including 354 (assault on a woman), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (causing grievous hurt), 307 (attempt to murder), and later, section 304 of the Indian Penal Code - which pertains to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Pathak had earlier moved two anticipatory bail applications before the High Court in 2018 and 2019, both of which were dismissed. In 2019, he also filed a petition seeking to quash the criminal proceedings, but withdrew it in August 2025.
Represented by Advocate Indrajit Sinha, the petitioner argued that a “fresh cause of action” had arisen since he was exonerated in departmental proceedings and that medical reports suggested the death in question was due to illness, not assault.
Court’s Observations
Justice Dwivedi, however, was not convinced. Referring to the provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), the court clarified that once an anticipatory bail plea is rejected, it cannot be revived on the same facts.
“The words and languages employed in Section 482 of the BNSS,” the bench observed, “do not even remotely foreshadow that an application for anticipatory bail could be harvested again, as there could be no revival of ‘reasons to believe’ of apprehension of arrest in the subsequent application when the earlier application has suffered rejection.”
The bench drew a sharp distinction between Section 482 (anticipatory bail) and Section 483 (regular bail), noting that while a person in custody may file repeated applications for regular bail, anticipatory bail does not enjoy such flexibility.
Quoting the Supreme Court’s caution in Mahadolal v. Administrator General (AIR 1960 SC 1930), Justice Dwivedi reminded that “judicial decorum no less than legal propriety forms the basis of judicial procedure” and that allowing coordinate benches to overrule one another “would lead to judicial anarchy and utter confusion.”
Decision
Finding no fresh ground or change in circumstance, the court concluded that Pathak’s new plea was not maintainable. “All these aspects were subject matter of earlier anticipatory bail applications,” Justice Dwivedi noted, adding that the chargesheet had already been filed after investigation by both the police and the CID.
Accordingly, the High Court rejected the anticipatory bail plea of Harish Kumar Pathak, bringing an end - at least for now - to his long legal pursuit for pre-arrest protection.
Case Title: Harish Kumar Pathak vs. State of Jharkhand
Case Number: A.B.A. No. 5595 of 2025
Date of Order: 9 October 2025