HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.SURENDER
CRIMINAL APPEAL No.483 OF 2009
JUDGMENT:
1. The State aggrieved by the acquittal of the appellants for the offence under Section 354, 504 and 506 of IPC vide judgment in SC No.129 of 2006 dated 19.11.2007 passed by the Assistant Sessions Judge at Vikarabad, R.R.District.
2. In all, there are 9 appellants, who according to the prosecution have picked up quarrel with P.W.2 on 12.04.2006 at 8.00 a.m. In the process, the husband, P.W.1 interfered and it is alleged that all the appellants have beaten both the husband and wife. The said acts of the appellants amounted to outraging the modesty of woman.
3. Learned Assistant Sessions Judge by impugned judgment dated 19.11.2007 acquitted all the appellants for the offence under Sections 354, 504 and 506 of IPC and convicted A1, A3 and A4 for a period of one year under Section 324 of IPC.
4. It is informed that on an appeal, A1, A3 and A4 were also acquitted for the charge under Section 324 of IPC against which no revision is filed by the State.
5. Learned Assistant Sessions Judge found that the complaint Ex.P1 does not disclose any incident with regard to the outraging the modesty of woman nor any specific overt acts attributed about the appellants. Learned Assistant Sessions Judge found that the writings about the outraging the modesty and section of law were subsequently added with a different pen. For the reason of discrepancy with regard to evidence amongst the prosecution witnesses regarding the saree of P.W.2 being removed, the learned Assistant Sessions Judge found that two appellants pulled the saree of P.W.2. However, P.W.2 stated that in the altercation, the saree came off. However, P.Ws.5, 6 and 7 stated that PW.5 wrapped the saree around P.W.2. When the complaint itself does not contain a mention of allegation of removal of saree and when it is subsequent improvement during the trial, the learned Assistant Sessions Judge found that there allegation of outraging the modesty was false and due to the disputes amongst the parties, they cannot be convicted under Section 354 of IPC.
6. The finding of the learned Assistant Sessions Judge are reasonable and on the basis of the contradictory evidence of the prosecution witnesses. Further, the allegation about removing the saree was not made in Ex.P1 complaint, for which reason, the learned Assistant Sessiosn Judge acquitted all the appellants under Section 354 of IPC.
7. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Radhakrishna Nagesh v. State of Andhra Pradesh1 held that under the Indian criminal jurisprudence, the accused has two fundamental protections available to him in a criminal trial or investigation. Firstly, he is presumed to be innocent till proved guilty and secondly that he is entitled to a fair trial and investigation. Both these facets attain even greater significance where the accused has a judgment of acquittal in his favour. A judgment of acquittal enhances the presumption of innocence of the 1 (2013) 11 supreme court Cases 688 accused and in some cases, it may even indicate a false implication. But then, this has to be established on record of the Court.
8. For the foregoing reasons, when the judgment of the trial Court does not suffer from any infirmity or illegality, the question of interference by the appellate court through appeal against the acquittal does not arise. The appeal lacks bonafides.
9. Accordingly, the Criminal Appeal is dismissed.
__________________ K.SURENDER, J Date: 24.08.2022 kvs HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.SURENDER CRIMINAL APPEAL No.483 OF 2009 Date: 24.08.2022.
kvs