Allahabad High Court
State Of U.P. vs Lalit Kishore Urf Babuwa S/O Gulab ... on 22 August, 2023
Bench: Ashwani Kumar Mishra, Syed Aftab Rizvi
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 46
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL DEFECTIVE No. - 395 of 2023
Appellant :- State of U.P.
Respondent :- Lalit Kishore Urf Babuwa S/O Gulab Singh Yadav
Counsel for Appellant :- Ashutosh Kumar Sand
Hon'ble Ashwani Kumar Mishra,J.
Hon'ble Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi,J.
Ref: Order on Delay Condonation Application.
The delay in filing of the appeal has been explained to the satisfaction of the Court and is otherwise not seriously opposed.
The delay condonation application is allowed.
Ref: Appeal.
Heard learned counsel for the appellant-State.
This appeal is by State along with an application for grant of leave to challenge the judgment of acquittal dated 18.10.2022 passed in S.T. No.121 of 2017 (State of U.P. Vs. Lalit Kishore Urf Babuwa) arising out of case crime no.304/2017 U/s 376, 506 IPC and 66E of I.T. Act, P.S. Charkhari, District Mahoba.
The informant is the victim in the present case who has lodged the report stating that the accused is a student of the same college where she was studying and has been harassing her for last about seven months. By misguiding and misleading her the accused took photographs of the victim and posted it on the social media. Allegation is also made of sexual assault on the victim and extending of threats etc. On 11.09.2017 the victim came to the college to collect her mark-sheet. The accused was already present and he obtained signatures of victim on the agreement of marriage and tried to take her to Kanpur but the victim somehow manage to flee and came back home. On the basis of such allegations case crime no.304 of 2017 was registered U/s 376, 506 IPC read with section 66E of IT Act. The investigation ultimately resulted in submission of charge-sheet against the accused.
At the stage of trial, the victim has appeared as P.W.-1 whereas her father has appeared as P.W.-2, her mother as P.W.-3, the scribe of FIR is P.W.-4, whereas the doctor who examined the victim has appeared as P.W.-5.
During the course of trial, the victim has supported the prosecution case as per which she was a final year student of graduation in the same college where the accused was studying in the first year. She was harassed by the accused while she used to come by bus. The accused persuaded the victim to come with him on motorcycle and committed sexual assault. The first incident was followed by second act of sexual assault after one and a half month. On account of fear, she had not disclosed such facts to the police.
During the course of trial, it has come in evidence that the victim was major at the time of incident and an agreement for marriage was prepared between the victim and the accused which was also signed. The father of the victim has stated that the accused belongs to a different casts and, therefore, he is opposed to the idea of victim's marriage with the accused. It has also come in evidence that the victim and the accused travelled to different places including Mussoorie on their own. No objection was ever raised by the victim to the initial acts of alleged sexual assault. The statement of the parents of the victim have been taken note of which are clearly suggestive of the fact that because of difference in caste the proposal of marriage was not acceptable to them and only thereafter the FIR has been got lodged in the matter.
The trial court on the basis of evidence led in the matter has come to the conclusion that possibility of relationship being consensual between the accused and the victim cannot be ruled out particularly as the victim continued in a relationship with the accused for several months and visited different places by public transport vehicles without ever raising any objection.
Though we have been taken through the judgment in order to submit that opinion of the court below is perverse but we do not find any such perversity in the judgment of the court below. We have carefully examined the judgment of the court below and upon its examination, we find that the view taken by the court below is clearly a permissible view, in the facts of the case, and just because a different view could be taken would ordinarily not be a ground for this Court to interfere with the order of acquittal. In such circumstances, we find that neither any triable issue is raised before us in this appeal nor any perversity is shown, which may persuade this Court to grant leave to assail the judgment of acquittal. Prayer made by the State for grant of leave is, accordingly, refused and the appeal, consequently, fails and is dismissed.
Order Date :- 22.8.2023
C. MANI
