State Of Up vs Bhagwati Prasad And 4 Others
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Allahabad High Court

State Of Up vs Bhagwati Prasad And 4 Others on 5 March, 2025

Author: Siddharth

Bench: Siddharth

HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
 
 


Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:35218-DB
 
Court No. - 47
 

 
Case :- GOVERNMENT APPEAL No. - 560 of 2024
 
Appellant :- State of U.P.
 
Respondent :- Bhagwati Prasad and 4 others
 
Counsel for Appellant :- A.K. Sand, Sushil Kumar Pandey
 
Counsel for the Respondent : - 
 

 
Hon'ble Siddharth,J.
 

Hon'ble Praveen Kumar Giri,J.

Order on Criminal Misc. (Leave to Appeal) Application

1. Heard Sri Sushil Kumar Pandey, learned AGA-Ist for the appellant and perused the record.

2. The above noted government appeal is filed against the judgment and order of acquittal dated 6.4.2024 passed by Additional Sessions Judge, Court No.3, District - Aligarh, in Sessions Trial No.11 of 2014, arising out of Case Crime No. 17 of 2013, under Sections 147, 148, 302/149 and 201 of IPC, Police Station - Harduaganj, District - Aligarh.

3. The prosecution story is that complainant lodged a missing report at Police Station concerned regarding missing of his nephew, Kamal Singh. However, at about 8.00 AM, the decapitated dead body of Kamal Singh was found floating in the water in front of the farm of one Aleem s/o Isak in village Budhasi. The deceased was tall. The complainant alleged that some unknown person after cutting the neck of the deceased had thrown the dead body in the water.

4. On the basis of the above complaint, an F.I.R. being Case Crime No. 17 of 2013 was lodged on 21.01.2013 under Section 302 against unknown persons.

5. The investigation was set into motion by Investigating Officer. The Investigating Officer inspected the place of occurrence, collected relevant evidence, took statements of witnesses and prepared the site plan. During the course of investigation, names of accused-respondents were revealed in the commission of crime. On conclusion of the investigation, charge-sheet was submitted against accused-respondents before the concerned Magistrate under Sections 147, 148, 149, 302 & 201 of IPC, and, thereafter, Magistrate took cognizance upon the said Charge sheet and committed the matter to Court of Sessions.

6. Thereafter, accused appeared before the concerned Court and charges were framed against them under 147, 148, 149, 302 & 201 which the accused-respondents pleaded not guilty and sought trial.

7. The prosecution, in order to prove its case, has led many documentary evidence including postmortem report and has examined as many as 11 witnesses namely, PW-1, Chokhe Lal (Complainant), PW-2, Dhara Singh; PW-3, Satish Kumar; PW-4, Guddo Devi; PW-5, Banwari Lal; PW-6, Head Constable Anil Kumar; PW-7, Jaswant Singh; PW-8, Jai Singh; PW-9, Dr. Ram Vihari; PW-10, Inspector M. D. Tomar; PW-11, Inspector Kushal Pal Singh.

8. After prosecution evidence was completed, the accused-respondents were put to question under Section 313 of Cr.P.C. wherein they stated that they were falsely implicated and the witnesses which were produced had given false statements.

9. At the end of the trial, after hearing the arguments on behalf of prosecution and the defence, the Trial Court acquitted the accused-respondents holding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubts.

10. Learned A.G.A. for the appellant-State has submitted that trial court has failed to appreciate the evidence on record. Learned A.G.A. has further submitted only on the basis of minor variations and contradictions in the statements of witnesses, the entire case of the prosecution cannot be disbelieved. Therefore, acquittal of respondents are bad in the eye of law.

11. Before we embark on testimony and the judgment of the Trial Court, the principle for interfering in appeal against acquittal would be required to be discussed.

12. 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.

13. 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."

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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."

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. We have perused the depositions of prosecution witnesses, documentary evidence supporting ocular versions and arguments advanced by learned counsel for the appellant. In the present case, initially, a missing report was lodged in the concerned police station and after the dead body was found floating in the water, the F.I.R. was lodged against unknown persons. The name of the alleged accused persons surfaced during the investigation. The case is based on circumstantial evidence. On 9th June, 2013, recovery was made from the alleged accused persons. The motive as alleged by the prosecution was with regard to the non payment of Rs. Rs.80,000/- which was alleged to be given to the deceased by the accused persons. However, the prosecution failed to prove the said motive. The recovery of weapon was made after a period of five months of the incident, on which bloodstains were found. The same was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory, however, in the F.S.L. report it was stated that on the weapon alleged to be used in the incident, disintegrated blood was found and, therefore, it could not be ascertained whether it was the human blood or not. The other prosecution witnesses have not supported the prosecution case. There are material discrepancies in the depositions of prosecution witnesses. Rather the prosecution has failed to produce any independent eyewitness who can support the prosecution case and, therefore, we are unable to accept the submissions of the State counsel in view of the the judgments of the Apex Court which lay down the criteria for considering the appeals against acquittal. In that view of the matter, we are unable to satisfy ourselves with the submission of learned A.G.A. for the appellant-State and we concur with the findings of the Trial Court.

21. The judgment of the trial court is well considered and we do not find any perversity in the findings recorded by the trial court.

22. In view of the above, application seeking leave to appeal is rejected.

Order on Government Appeal No. 560 of 2024

In view of the fact that application seeking leave to appeal has been rejected, the government appeal stands dismissed.

Let Trial Court's Record along with a copy of this judgment be sent to the trial court within two weeks.

Order Date :- 5.3.2025

DKS