Allahabad High Court
State Of U.P. vs Sanjeev Singh And 2 Ors. on 14 September, 2022
Bench: Vivek Kumar Birla, Rahul Chaturvedi
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 42
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 404 of 2018
Appellant :- State of U.P.
Respondent :- Sanjeev Singh And 2 Ors.
Counsel for Appellant :- G.A.
Hon'ble Vivek Kumar Birla,J.
Hon'ble Rahul Chaturvedi,J.
Re: Criminal Misc. Application (Leave to Appeal)
Heard Shri Kailash Prakash Pathak, learned A.G.A. appearing for the appellant-State of UP and perused the record.
Present government appeal has been preferred against the judgement and order of acquitted dated 30.10.2017 passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, F.T.C., Court No.26, Shahjahanpur in Session Trial No.118 of 2008 (State of U.P. vs. Sanjeev Singh and others), arising out of Case Crime No.317 of 2007, under Sections 364, 302/34, 201 IPC, P.S.-Sindhauli, District Shahjahanpur, whereby the accused has been acquitted from the charges under Sections 364, 302/34, 201 I.P.C.
We find that connected criminal appeal u/s 372 Cr.P.C. numbered as Criminal Misc. Application u/s 372 Cr.P.C. (Leave to Appeal) No.54 of 2018 (Naresh Pal Singh vs State of U.P.) challenging the judgement impugned hereinabove, has already been presented and after considering the same on merits, leave to file appeal was refused and consequently the appeal was also rejected vide judgment and order dated 12.02.2018, which is quoted as under :
"This appeal along with an application seeking leave to appeal has been preferred against the judgment and order dated 30.10.2017 passed by Additional Sessions Judge, F.T.C., Court No. 26, Shahjahanpur acquitting the accused-respondents under Section 364, 302/34, 201 IPC in Sessions Trial No. 118 of 2008.
As per the prosecution case, the son of the informant, aged about 16 years, who had gone to his school by his bicycle alongwith school bag, gone missing from the sugar cane field of Ranvir Singh. According to the informant, the bicycle and a school bag were found in the field as such he informed immediately to the police station about missing of his son. He further alleged that on 23.09.2007 when he could not get any clue of his missing son, he apprehended that his son had been kidnapped for causing his murder. It is further stated that initially he did not disclose the name to police of those persons on whom he had suspicion, as he and his family members were seeking proof of their involvement. Later on, he alleged that Sanjiv son of Jaipal, Brijpal son of Harnam Singh, Vinod son of Mahesh Kachi and Sushil son of Ram Avtar had kidnapped his son and after committing his murder have hidden his dead body. Murder was said to have been committed over a property dispute. It was stated that Sanjiv Singh's maternal grand father Babu Singh was his real uncle who had no male issue except three daughters including Sanjiv's mother. She shifted to her father's place for enjoying his property. However, when Sanjiv grew up, he apprehended that he has not been given his due share in his maternal grand father's property, as it was misappropriated by the informant. This allegedly led to the commission of crime.
The dead body of the victim was not found but only a skeleton with decomposed bones was recovered and recovery memo (Exhibit 2) was prepared. The informant Naresh Pal Singh was examined as PW-1 whereas Virendra Pal as PW-2 and Dr. M.P. Gangwar, who conducted the post mortem examination, was examined as PW-3. According to Dr. M.P. Singh PW-3, who was a Radiologist and conducted the post mortem examination on 03.10.2007 opined that exact cause of death could not be given and various bones of skeleton were preserved.
The trial court scanned the entire evidence including the material evidence in the case. The trial court after scanning the entire evidence including material evidence has recorded a finding of fact to the effect that since skeleton found could not be identified by the members of family, so DNA test was necessary, so that it could be ascertained that the skeleton found was of victim Ankur but neither such test was conducted nor, any sample of blood was sent for examination to forensic laboratory and even the bones that were found were not intact but broken into pieces and so it was not possible to assess the exact age of the person whose skeleton was recovered.
The trial court has further observed that initially the missing report was lodged but later on, section 364 IPC was added and thereafter on 02.10.2007 another report was submitted in which the accused persons were named whereas, it has come in the statement of first informant PW-1 that he had come to know about the kidnapping of his son on 23.09.2007 itself. So the delay of 10 days in lodging the FIR despite the informant having acquired knowledge about his son's kidnapping by the accused persons creates a serious dent to the prosecution case.
The trial court has further observed that motive could not be ascertained, as according to the statement of informant his father were three brothers and all the three brothers had died within 5 to 8 years of the death of Babu Singh. Babu Singh had three daughters, Munni died about 20-30 years ago, aged of Saroj, the other daughter, must be around 60 years and the youngest daughter Meera's age would be 45 years. So, when Babu Singh died, Meera must have been 3-4 years old. None of the three daughters got engaged in any litigation with the petitioner over the property. PW-1 further stated that Sanjiv's maternal grand father Babu Singh was his uncle and he did not know the exact area of the land belonging to Sanjiv's maternal grand father. He further stated that his father had died after Babu Singh and his father partitioned the land of Sanjiv's maternal grand father amongst her daughters. Thus, the trial court concluded that the testimony of PW-1 does not corroborate the theory that both the family had enmity with each other. The trial court has further observed that the testimonies of these witnesses are self contradictory and do not form a chain to arrive at inevitable conclusion that it were the accused persons who committed offence beyond any reasonable doubt.
We find that the reason given by the court below while passing the impugned judgment is cogent satisfactory and convincing and the learned counsel for applicant has not been able to show us any such illegality or perversity in the judgment so as to call for interference in the present appeal.
In view of the above, we declined to grant leave to appeal and accordingly, the application is rejected and so also the appeal."
We do not find any good ground to take different view of the matter, particularly when no additional ground could be highlighted by learned A.G.A. Accordingly, application for granting leave to appeal is rejected.
Re: Government Appeal
Since the Criminal Misc. Application (Leave to Appeal) is rejected by order of date, consequently the present government appeal is also dismissed.
Order Date :- 14.9.2022
M. Kumar
