Allahabad High Court
State Of U.P. vs Raghubar & Others on 7 October, 2014
Bench: Rakesh Tiwari, Vijay Lakshmi
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 36
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 2983 of 1998
Appellant :- State Of U.P.
Respondent :- Raghubar & Others
Counsel for Appellant :- A.K. Mishra,A.G.A.,Anil Kumar
Counsel for Respondent :- Nishendra Singh,S.K. Tiwari
Hon'ble Rakesh Tiwari,J.
Hon'ble Mrs. Vijay Lakshmi,J.
(Delivered by Hon'ble Mrs. Vijay Lakshmi, J.)
The State of U.P. has filed this appeal under Section 378 Cr.P.C. questioning the legality of the judgment dated 12.6.1998 passed by the Sessions Judge, Hamirpur whereby all the accused persons/respondent Nos. 1, 2 and 3 were acquitted of the charges levelled against each of them under sections 304/34 and 323/34 IPC.
We have heard Sri Chandrajeet Yadav learned AGA, Shri Anil Kumar learned counsel for the complainant and Shri S.K. Tiwari, learned counsel for the other side and have perused the trial court's judgment and record.
Learned AGA has vehemently argued that the Trial Court has not properly appreciated the evidence on record and has acquitted the accused persons on flimsy grounds. The judgement and order passed by the Trial Court is based on surmises and conjectures and is against the weight of evidence on record. There is no material contradiction in the statements of witnesses, but the Trial Court has erred in holding otherwise. On the aforesaid grounds, it has been prayed by learned AGA that the appeal be allowed, the impugned judgment of acquittal be set aside and the respondents be convicted and sentenced according to law.
Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents has contested the grounds of appeal by arguing that the learned Trial Court has rightly acquitted the accused persons because the prosecution in this case has miserably failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. The medical evidence produced by the prosecution does not coincide with the oral evidence. The prosecution has produced only two material witnesses both of whom are highly interested witness and their statements suffers from material contradictions, discrepancies, embellishments and improvements.
The learned counsel for the respondents has further submitted that the prosecution in this case has not come with clean hands and it has suppressed the genesis of the occurrence. Moreover, there is no explanation of the injuries sustained by the accused persons. The FIR is totally silent on this point and the witnesses have not spoken anything about the injuries sustained by the accused persons. Learned counsel for the respondents has contended that all these facts were sufficient enough to shroud the prosecution story with reasonable doubt. Learned Trial Court, rightly disbelieved the prosecution case and acquitted the accused persons after recording a clear finding that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. It is further submitted by learned counsel for the respondents that there is a cross case of the occurrence which has also been ended in acquittal. Both the sides had received injuries in the same occurrence. Both parties had lodged report against each other and after conclusion of trial both the cases had ended in acquittal. It has been submitted by learned counsel for the respondents that occurrence relates to the year 1989 and a considerable long period has elapsed since then and in order to maintain the atmosphere of peace and harmony between the parties, the order of acquittal should not be disturbed.
After having considered the rival contentions of both the parties and on a careful scrutiny of the judgment and the concerned record, it cannot be said that the view taken by the trial judge is perverse or unreasonable.
The record shows that the accused persons have also received injuries during the same occurrence and they have been medically examined by the same doctor Dr. Umesh Chandra Gupta-P.W.-6. The injury reports of three accused persons namely Ratan, Totaram, and Shanti have been duly proved in court as Ex. Kha-3, Ex.Kha-4 and Ex. Kha-5. The injury reports of the accused persons show that accused Totaram and accused Shanti have received injury on their heads, which is a vital part of the body. There is not even a whisper from the side of prosecution regarding the injuries of accused persons.
On the basis of aforesaid fact and due to non-availability of any cogent evidence as to how the quarrel started and who was the aggressor, the learned lower court rightly came to the conclusion that the prosecution has tried to suppress the genesis of the occurrence because there is no explanation of the injuries sustained by the accused persons during the same occurrence.
The Apex Court in a catena of judgements has taken the consistent view that whenever the accused sustains injury in the same occurrence in which the complainant has suffered the injury, the prosecution should explain the injury upon the accused. (Mano Dutt vs. State of U.P.) (2012) 4 SCC 79).
In another recent case of State of Rajasthan vs. Shiv Charan (2013) 12 SCC 76 the Apex Court has held as under:-
"Before the non-explanation of the injuries on the person of the accused, by the prosecution witnesses, may be held to affect the prosecution case, the Court has to be satisfied of the existence of two conditions:
I.that the injuries on the person of the accused were also of a serious nature ; and
II.that such injuries must have been caused at the time of the occurrence in question."
Testing the facts of the present case on the touchstone of the aforesaid law, laid down by the Apex Court, it cannot be said that the injuries sustained by the accused persons are of such a nature which can be manufactured. The fact that injuries on the accused persons have been caused at the time of the occurrence in question, has been sufficiently proved by the prosecution witnesses P.W.6 and P.W.7.
Therefore, the view taken by the Trial Judge does not appear to be perverse and unreasonable and considering the evidence available on record, it cannot be said that the view taken by the trial Judge is not a reasonably possible view.
There is a plethora of judgments of Hon'ble Supreme Court on the point that where two views are reasonably possible from the very same evidence, appellate court should not reverse the judgment of acquittal by trial court viz. C. Antony v. K.G. Raghavan Nair AIR 2003 SC 182, (2003) 1 SCC 1; Chandrappa v. State (2007) 4 SCC 415, 2007 Cr.LJ 2136 ; K. Prakashan v. P.K. Surenderan, (2008) 1 SCC 258 ; and T. Subramanian v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2006) 1 SCC 401.
In this view of the matter, there is no merit in the application for leave to appeal which is liable to be rejected and is hereby, rejected. Consequently, the Appeal is also dismissed.
Order Date :- 7.10.2014
Ps/.
