The Delhi High Court has granted bail to two accused in the April 2023 murder of a 19-year-old near Khan Market, Delhi, after more than three years in custody. It did so because the trial is slow, they are not named as attackers in the dying declaration, and no independent witness has identified them as having struck him.
In a murder case, long custody and a slow trial cannot by themselves justify bail, but they can be weighed along with the accused’s individual role, the evidence recorded so far, the absence of antecedents, and any earlier compliance with interim bail. A court may consider that an accused is not named in the dying declaration, no independent witness has identified him as an assailant and no weapon or forensic link is shown, without ruling out common intention or conspiracy, which are matters for trial. Fear of witness interference can be addressed through strict conditions where no specific attempt is shown.
Akash was stabbed to death on 16 April 2023, allegedly in a planned attack arising from an old rivalry between two groups. The police charged Sourab Rawat and Ankit Kumar under Sections 302, 120-B and 34 IPC, saying that they were part of the group seen on CCTV moving towards Khan Market, and that Sourab carried a knife and slapped the victim, while Ankit was armed and had made threats in a video of January 2023. The prosecution also relied on call records and an oral dying declaration made while the victim was being taken to the hospital. Justice Sanjeev Narula noted that the declaration named three other persons “along with associates”, not these two, and that a head constable admitted that Ankit’s name was not mentioned. The independent witnesses examined so far could not identify either of them as the assailants, and one witness who saw the assault, including a stabbing by a muffled person, could not identify the attackers or recognise them in the CCTV footage. A relative-witness identified both in the footage but said that he had not known them before the incident, and the value of that identification is left to the trial. No Arms Act charge was framed against them, and the forensic blood evidence was linked to a co-accused, not to them. The court accepted that common intention and conspiracy can make a person liable without his having struck the fatal blow, and that neither long custody nor a slow trial can by itself justify bail in a murder case. But it found that only a small part of the 58 witnesses has been examined since charges were framed in April 2024, both have no criminal record, and Ankit had earlier been on interim bail several times without misuse. It said that the fear of witness interference can be met by conditions, granted bail on a Rs 25,000 bond with two sureties each, and noted that its view is not a finding that the prosecution case is weak.
Citation: Sourab Rawat v. State (NCT of Delhi) (with Ankit Kumar v. State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi), Bail Appln. 3215/2026), Bail Appln. 3138/2026, Delhi High Court (Justice Sanjeev Narula), decided on 17.10.2026 | 2026:DHC:9400
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