State Of Chhattisgarh vs Laxminarayan
2022 Latest Caselaw 159 Chatt

                                         1

                                                                              NAFR
                HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH, BILASPUR

                              CRMP No. 296 of 2014

State Of Chhattisgarh Through The District Magistrate Korba C.G., Chhattisgarh

                                         ---- Petitioner

                                        Vers
Laxminarayan S/o Late Shri Puranlal Aged About 59 Years R/o. Laluram Colony,
T.P. Nagar, Teh. And Distt. Kora C.G., Chhattisgarh
                                                                  ----Respondent

For Petitioner/State:                    Shri Gurudev I Sharan, G.A
For Respondent:                          Shri Vivek Tripathi, Advocate.


              Single Bench:Hon'ble Shri Deepak Kumar Tiwari J
                             Order On Board
10.01.2022

1. The State has preferred this application for grant of leave to Appeal under

Section 378(3) Cr.P.C, 1973 against the order of acquittal dated 30.12.2009

passed in Criminal Appeal No.04/2009 by the 2 nd Additional Sessions Judge

(FTC), Korba (CG) acquitting the accused/Respondent from the offence

punishable under Section 420 IPC.

2. This Petition is barred by 1436 days of limitation. The State has filed an

application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 to condone the said delay.

The reasons as to why the Application seeking leave to Appeal and Criminal

Appeal could not be filed in time are detailed in paragraphs No.3 and 4 of the

application. It is stated in the application that delay was caused due to fulfillment

of departmental formalities and working of the Government machinery. It is

stated further that the State Government is a multi functioning body, hence at

times the fulfillment of departmental formalities takes unexpected long time,

therefore, in some cases, the State is prevented from filing the case within the

prescribed period of limitation, which is bona fide and not deliberate.

3. In the application, no specific facts have been mentioned about the cause

of delay, therefore, the State has been directed to file a better application

assigning proper reasons for the huge delay of 1436 days in filing the Cr.M.P. It

has been mentioned in the revised application filed on 08.01.2014 that no

procedure has been initiated for filing an Acquittal Appeal and a complaint has

been made by one Shyamveer Tandon to the higher authorities about the non-

filing of the Appeal, then after receiving the proposal from the Office of the Public

Prosecutor, Korba, this Appeal has been filed.

4. The State Counsel has placed reliance in the matter of State of Haryana

vs. Chandra Mani reported in (1996) 3 SCC 132, wherein it was observed that it

is notorious and common knowledge that delay in more than 60 per cent of the

cases filed in this Court -- be it by private party or the State -- are barred by

limitation and this Court generally adopts liberal approach in condonation of

delay finding somewhat sufficient cause to decide the appeal on merits.

5. Lal Bahadur (PW-2) has made a complaint to the Sessions Judge, Korba

that the accused/Respondent who was working as an Additional Government

Pleader has assured him to secure bail to his relative Tejpal by giving him

Rs.4,000/- in the name of Judge through him and on such assurance he had

given such amount, but bail was not granted, so he asked the

accused/Respondent for returning the said amount and the accused told him that

he had already given the amount to the Judge, and not returned him. After

receiving such complaint, the Sessions Judge forwarded it to the concerned

S.H.O. and after that F.I.R. has been registered. In the present case, so many

infirmities have been pointed out by the learned appeallate Court. The

Complainant himself cannot be safely relied upon, as he has acted as

accomplice and no other clincing evidence is available against the accused.

Even the concerned case in which the amount has been demanded by the

accused and the giving and receiving the money was not proved during trial. The

Complainant himself has not reported the matter to the Police and the manner in

which the cognizance has been taken is also not proper. In Shantinath S. Patil v.

State of Maharashtra reported in 2010 SCC OnLine Bombay 1212, it was held

that a Public Prosecutor/Additional Public Prosecutor can be said to be a public

servant within the meaning of the term as defined in section 2(c) of the

Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. So, after considering the impugned

judgment and the statements recorded by the prosecution and considering the

submissions of the parties, this Court finds that there is no infirmity in the reasons

assigned by the learned trial Judge for acquitting the accused/Respondent.

Suffice it to say that the learned Trial Judge has given cogent and convincing

reasons for acquitting the accused and the learned Counsel for the State has

failed to dislodge the reasons given by the learned Trial Judge and convince this

Court to take a view contrary to the one taken by the learned Judge.

6. In view of the above, this Court do not deem it expedient to condone the

delay as the application seeking leave to Appeal so also the Appeal, which is filed

against the impugned judgment and order, lacks merit. Therefore, the application

for condonation of delay deserves to be and is accordingly dismissed.

7. Consequently, this Cr.M.P fails and is accordingly dismissed.

Sd/-

(Deepak Kumar Tiwari) JUDGE Priya