State Of U.P. vs Mewa Alias Mewa Lal And 5 Others
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Allahabad High Court

State Of U.P. vs Mewa Alias Mewa Lal And 5 Others on 25 August, 2025

Bench: Siddharth, Santosh Rai

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
 


?Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:146933-DB
 

 
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 332 of 2025
 
Court No. - 47
 
HON'BLE SIDDHARTH, J.

HON'BLE SANTOSH RAI, J.

Order on Criminal Misc. (Leave to Appeal) Application No. of 2025

1. Heard Sri Prem Shankar Prasad, learned AGA for the State-appellant; Sri Anand Kumar Singh, learned counsel for respondent no.1; Sri Rakesh Kumar Rathaur, Advocate, holding brief of Sri Sushil Kumar, learned counsel for respondent nos. 2, 3, 5 & 6; Sri Lakshman Singh, learned counsel for respondent no.4 and perused the material on record.

2. The above noted leave to appeal application has been filed praying for grant of leave to the appellant to prefer appeal against the judgement and order of acquittal dated 30.8.2024 passed by Additional District and Sessions Judge, Court no.1, District Jalaun, in Sessions Case No. 107 of 2014 (State of U.P. Vs. Mewa @ Mewa Lal and others).

3. By the aforesaid judgement and order, the accused-respondents except respondent no.1 have been acquitted of all charges under Sections 304 & 328 IPC which was registered as Case Crime No. 2696 of 2011 at Police Station Kotwali Orai, District Jalaun.

4. The prosecution story in brief is that the complainant of the case, Smt. Sushma, wife of Late Akhilesh Kumar, the then Resident of Ram Nagar Orai, at present Resident of Mohalla Baghaura Orai, Police Station Orai, District Jalaun, has given a written report stating therein that at the time of incident, she was living in Mohalla Ram Nagar, Jhansi Road, Orai and at present she is living in Mohalla Baghaura Orai for safety of her children as well as herself. In the month of March, 2009 she was seriously ill and at that time she needed money for her treatment. She kept all her silver jewelry, i.e., 1 kg. and 750 gms. with Mewa and Sunil. After her treatment she and her husband demanded back their jewellery after returning all the money with interest, but they denied returning the same and also threatened them of demanding the same again. Thereafter a panchayat of their caste as well as relatives was held, then Mewa, Banty, Sunil, Ajay, Ravi and Ramu had beaten her husband badly, but the first information report was not lodged under the pressure, but she continued to do approval at the higher officials. Due to aforesaid enmity on 15.10.2010 she along with her two children, namely, Aakash and Avinash, had gone at Bairagarh Devi for pilgrims and when she was going at Bairagarh at that time Ramu asked her when she will return, then she replied till evening. At that time her husband and her elder son, namely, Ashutosh were present at home. Ramu, Ajay, Bantey, Sunil and Ravi, who had initially beaten her husband and for lodging of the report her husband was trying his best, they were threatening him. On 15.10.2010 in the evening when she came back from Bairagarh, then she saw that the house was locked from outside and when she entered in the house she found her husband lying and from his mouth foam was coming out and he was unable to speak. He was only he was hinting something. Thereafter she brought her husband to Sadar Hospital, Orai, where the doctors started his treatment and when her husband became conscious he wrote the names of the persons who administered poison to him, namely, Ramu, Ravi, Mewa, Ajay, Bantey and Sunil. The doctors also declared that poison was given to him. Thereafter doctors referred him for Jhansi Medical College where he was taken on 15.10.2010 and in the night at 2:00 hours, doctors declared him dead. Thereafter complainant's father-in-law informed at Police Station Kotwali, Orai regarding the incident. Thereafter the post mortem of her husband was conducted and the doctor opined that the deceased has died due to administrative of poison and viscera was preserved. Complainant approached higher authorities to lodge the first information report, but it was not lodged. Thereafter the complainant moved an application before court below Under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C., and on the direction of learned court below, the first information report of present case was lodged, and after lodging of the first information report of present case, the Investigating Officer started investigation and investigated the case in a very free, fair and impartial manner. The Investigating Officer after making detail investigation, completing all formalities and collecting credible evidence submitted charge sheet against the accused persons in the court below to face its trial.

5. Trial court framed charges against the respondent which they denied and sought trial.

6. The prosecution in order to prove its case has examined PW-1 complainant of the case Smt. Sushma Devi; PW-2 Ashutosh; PW-3 Head Moharrir Khoob Chandra; PW-4 Dr. Chandra Shekhar Gautam; PW-5 Sub-Inspector Kesh Bharti and PW-6 Second Investigating Officer Sub-Inspector Sudhakar Singh.

7. Learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that trial court has acquitted the accused- respondent holding that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt and as such the accused-respondent are entitled for acquittal.

8. The appellate Court is usually reluctant to interfere with a judgment acquitting an accused on the principle that the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused is reinforced by such a judgment. The above principle has been consistently followed by the Constitutional Court while deciding appeals against acquittal by way of Article 136 of the Constitution or appeals filed under Section 378 and 386 (a) Cr.P.C. in State of M.P. Vs. Sharad Goswami,(2021) 17 SCC 783; State of Rajasthan Vs. Shera Ram, (2012) 1 SCC 602, Shivaji Sahabrao Bobade Vs. State of Maharastra, (1973) 2 SCC 793.

9. The Supreme Court in the case of Ramesh Babulal Doshi Vs. State of Gujarat, (1996) 9 SCC 225 has observed that the High Court must examine the reasons given by the trial Court for recording their acquittal before disturbing the same by re-appraising the evidence recorded by the trial court. For clarity, para 7 is extracted herein below:

"Before proceeding further it will be pertinent to mention that the entire approach of the High Court in dealing with the appeal was patently wrong for it did not at all address itself to the question as to whether the reasons which weighed with the trial Court for recording the order of acquittal were proper or not. Instead thereof the High Court made an independent reappraisal of the entire evidence to arrive at the above quoted conclusions. This Court has repeatedly laid down that the mere fact that a view other than the one taken by the trial Court can be legitimately arrived at by the appellate Court on reappraisal of the evidence cannot constitute a valid and sufficient ground to interfere with an order of acquittal unless it comes to the conclusion that the entire approach of the trial Court in dealing with the evidence was patently illegal or the conclusions arrived at by it were wholly untenable. While sitting in judgment over an acquittal the appellant Court is first required to seek an answer to the question whether the findings of the trial Court are palpably wrong, manifestly erroneous or demonstrably unsustainable. If the appellant Court answers the above question in the negative the order of acquittal is not to be disturbed. Conversely, if the appellant Court holds, for reasons to be recorded, that the order of acquittal cannot at all be sustained in view of any of the above infirmities it can then - and then only - reappraise the evidence to arrive at its own conclusions. In keeping with the above principles we have therefore to first ascertain whether the findings of the trial Court are sustainable or not."

10. The Supreme Court in the case of Sadhu Saran Singh Vs. State of U.P., (2016) 4 SCC 357 has observed that an appeal against acquittal has always been on an altogether different pedestal from an appeal against conviction. In an appeal against acquittal, where the presumption of innocence in favour of the accused is reinforced, the appellate court would interfere with the order of acquittal only when there is perversity.

11. The Supreme Court in the case Basheera Begam Vs. Mohd. Ibrahim, (2020) 11 SCC 174 has held that the burden of proving an accused guilty beyond all reasonable doubt lies on the prosecution. If, upon analysis of evidence, two views are possible, one which points to the guilt of the accused and the other which is inconsistent with the guilt of the accused, the latter must be preferred. Reversal of a judgment and other of conviction and acquittal of the accused should not ordinarily be interfered with unless such reversal/acquittal is vitiated by perversity. In other words, the court might reverse an order of acquittal if the court finds that no person properly instructed in law could have, upon analysis of the evidence on record, found the accused to be "not guilty". When circumstantial evidence points to the guilt of the accused, it is necessary to prove a motive for the crime. However, motive need not be proved where there is direct evidence. In this case, there is no direct evidence of the crime.

12. The Supreme Court in the case of Kali Ram Vs. State of H.P., (1973) 2 SCC 808 has observed as under:

"25. Another golden thread which runs through the web of the administration of justice in criminal cases is that if two views are possible on the evidence adduced in the case, one pointing to the guilt of the accused and other to his innocence, the view which is favourable to the accused should be adopted. This principle has a special relevance in cases wherein the guilt of the accused is sought is to established by circumstantial evidence."

13. The Supreme Court again examined in State of Odisha v. Banabihari Mohapatra & Ors, (2021) 15 SCC 268 the effect of the probability of two views in cases of appeal against acquittal and held that if two views are possible on the evidence adduced in the case, one pointing to the guilt of the accused, and the other to his innocence, the view which is favourable to the accused should be adopted.

14. The Supreme Court in Sujit Biswas v. State of Assam, (2013) 12 SCC 406 has reiterated the position that suspicion, however strong, cannot replace proof. An accused is presumed to be innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

15. In the background of the law discussed herein above, we will examine the trial court's findings and evidence adduced during the trial by the witnesses to test the legality and validity of the impugned order.

16. We have heard learned counsel for the appellant and perused the material on record. We find that cause of the death of the deceased was found to be consumption of alcohol. PW-2, Ashutosh, son of the informant and the deceased, is not eye-witness of the incident, since he had admitted that he left the place of incident after the convicted accused, Mewa Lal, gave him Rs.20 for going out and eating something. The allegation of consumption of poisonous/ spurious liquor by the deceased was not found correct from the medical evidence produced before the trial court. The finding of the trial court that prosecution failed to prove that the accused went to the house of the deceased and made him to consume some poisonous substance/alcohol was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. PW-1 was not eye-witness of the incident. The trial court has already convicted and sentenced one of the co-accused, namely, Mewa @ Mewa Lal, under Section 328 IPC.

17. After considering the evidence on record, this Court does not finds any perversity in the findings recorded by the trial court. The trial court's judgement is a well merited one, this Court need not re-appreciate the evidence.

18. This leave to appeal application is rejected.

Order on Government Appeal

Since leave to appeal application is rejected, therefore, the above noted government appeal is, hereby, dismissed.

August 25, 2025

Ruchi Agrahari