Madhya Pradesh High Court
Umashankar Pipronya vs Raje @ Rajesh on 21 April, 2022
Author: Dinesh Kumar Paliwal
1
IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
AT JABALPUR
BEFORE
HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE DINESH KUMAR PALIWAL
ON THE 21st OF APRIL, 2022
CRIMINAL APPEAL No. 5028 of 2019
Between:-
UMASHANKAR PIPRONYA S/O PRAKASH
PIPRONIYA , AGED ABOUT 37 YEARS,
OCCUPATION: RAOJGARH ASSISTNANT VILLAGE
KOTHIYA POST AND P.S. CHICHLI TEHSIL
GADARWARA (MADHYA PRADESH)
.....APPELLANT
(BY SHRI SUBODH TAMRAKAR, ADVOCATE)
AND
1. RAJE @ RAJESH S/O BAIRAGI CHOUDHARY ,
AGED ABOUT 30 YEARS, VILL. KOTHIYA P.S.
CHICHLI (MADHYA PRADESH)
2. THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH THR POLICE
STATION CHICHLI DISTT REWA (MADHYA
PRADESH)
.....RESPONDENTS
(BY SHRI ATIN VISHWAKARMA, PANEL LAWYER)
This appeal coming on for ADMISSION this day, the court passed the
following:
JUDGMENT
Aggrieved by the acquittal order dated 29.04.2019 passed by the 3rd
ASJ, Gadarwara, District- Narsinghpur in ST.No.58/18 (State of M.P. through P.S
Chichli Vs. Raje @ Rajesh) under Section 435 of IPC has filed appeal before this
Court under Section 372 of Cr.P.C.
2. Briefly, the facts of the case are that on 02.03.2017 at around 10 P.M,
Umashankar Piproniya resident of Village Kothiya informed SI S.K.Tiwari, P.W-7
that he is a farmer. His and Rajesh's fields are adjoining. His stackyard is situated
in front of his house. In his stackyard paddy straw, red gram straw and dry crops
of red gram and mustard were lying. Today his neighbour Rajesh Choudhary right
from the afternoon was uttering filthy words and was telling that he has burnt his
crop, so he will do the same. He did not take notice of his words. At around 8:30
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P.M, hearing the screams of Rajesh Choudhary, he went towards his stackyard
side and saw that Rajesh has set his paddy straw on fire. After setting the
paddystraw on fire Rajesh fled away towards his house. On hearing the alarm
raised by him, Guddu, Lakhan Katiya, and Kalu Bohre too reached their and they
saw Rajesh fleeing from there. They all attempted to extinguish fire but they could
not douse it. Due to fire, his paddy straw, red gram chaff and other crops worth
Rs.50,000/- got burnt and damaged. On the basis of narration given by
Umashankar P.W-1, Dehati Nalisi exhibt -P-1 was recorded and on the basis of it,
FIR was registered in P.S Chichli.
3. After investigation, police Chichli filed charge-sheet before JMFC who in
his turn committed the case to the Court of session. Charge was framed. Accused
abjured his guilt and claimed to be tried.
4. In order to prove its case, the prosecution examined seven witnesses,
Umashankar P.W-1, Guddu P.W-2, Manoj Sharma P.W-3, Bhuwanlal Choudhary
P.W-4, Lakhan Katiya P.W-5, Rajendra Bohre P.W.-6 and Shiv Kumar Tiwari
P.W-7.
5. After going through the evidence produced by the prosecution, by the
impugned order dated 29.04.2019, learned Additional Sessions Judge acquitted the
accused/ respondent for offences under Section 435 of IPC.
6. Shri Subodh Tamrakar, learned counsel for the appellant has submitted
that Umashankar Piproniya P.W-1 by his evidence has proved the case against the
respondent/ accused beyond the shadow of doubt. Other witnesses have also
supported the factum of fire and damage of worth Rs.50,000/- to the complainant
due to the fire. Therefore, learned trial Court was not justified to acquit respondent
/accused. Thus, he has prayed that impugned order of acquittal dated 29.04.2019
be set aside.
7. Heard learned counsel for the appellant, perused the impugned judgment
and examined the trial Court record.
8. There are certain established principles with regard to the jurisdiction of
the High Court while dealing with an acquittal order. In the case of Rajesh Prasad
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Vs. State of Bihar (2022) 3 SCC 471 the Hon'ble Supreme Court has laid down
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the principle with regard to the powers of an appellate Court in an appeal against
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acquittal order. The Hon'ble Supreme Court observed as under:
28. This Court in Chandrappa & Ors. vs. State
of Karnataka, (2007) 4 SCC 415, highlighted that there is
one significant difference in exercising power while
hearing an appeal against acquittal by the appellate court.
The appellate court would not interfere where the
judgment impugned is based on evidence and the view
taken was reasonable and plausible. This is because the
appellate court will determine the fact that there is
presumption in favour of the accused and the accused is
entitled to get the benefit of doubt but if it decides to interfere
it should assign reasons for differing with the decision of
acquittal.
29. After referring to a catena of judgments, this Court
culled out the following general principles regarding the
powers of the appellate court while dealing with an appeal
against an order of acquittal in the following words:
42. From the above decisions, in our considered
view, the following general principles regarding
powers of the appellate court while dealing with an appeal
against an order of acquittal emerge:
(1) An appellate court has full power to review,
reappreciate and reconsider the evidence upon which the
order of acquittal is founded.
(2) The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 puts no
limitation, restriction or condition on exercise of such
power and an appellate court on the evidence
before it may reach its own conclusion, both on
questions of fact and of law.
(3) Various expressions, such as, Âœsubstantial and
compelling reasons Âœgood and sufficient grounds
Âœvery strong circumstancesÂ, distorted conclusionsÂ,
Âœglaring mistakesÂ, etc. are not intended to curtail
extensive powers of an appellate court in an appeal
against acquittal. Such phraseologies are more in the nature
of œflourishes of language to emphasise the reluctance of
an appellate court to interfere with acquittal than to curtail
the power of the court to review the evidence and to come to
its
own conclusion.
(4) An appellate court, however, must bear in mind that
in case of acquittal, there is double presumption in
favour of the accused. Firstly, the presumption of
innocence is available to him under the
fundamental principle of criminal jurisprudence that
every person shall be presumed to be innocent unless he is
proved guilty by a competent court of law. Secondly, the
accused having secured his acquittal, the presumption of
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his innocence is further reinforced, reaffirmed and
strengthened by the trial court.
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(5) If two reasonable conclusions are possible on the basis
of the evidence on record, the appellate court should
not disturb the finding
of acquittal recorded by the trial court.
9. It is, indeed, tried to state that the scope of interference with an acquittal
order is extremely limited. In case, view taken by the learned trial Court is a
reasonable one, then the acquittal order should not be interfered with rightly by the
appellate Court. Therefore, where dealing with the acquittal order, the appellate
Court has to reassess the evidence available on record and evaluate the reasoning
given by the learned trial Court.
10. Guddu Katiya, P.W-2 has been declared hostile. In his examination-in-
chief, he stated that 16-17 months ago at the time of holi, at around 6-7pm when he
was going towards his home, he had seen fire in stackyard of Umashankar. He had
not seen who had ablazed it. He has stated that on the day of incident, Rajesh was
abusing Umashankar and was telling that Umashankar has encroached over his
land. He has stated nothing against accused.
11. Manoj Kumar Sharma, P.W-3 has deposed that after receiving call from
police station, he with fire brigade had gone on the spot. He has also not deposed
anything against respondent/accused.
12. Lakhan Katiya, P.W-5 has been declared hostile. He has deposed that
almost 2 years ago fire incident had taken place in stackyard of Umashankar but no
damage was caused to Umashankar as paddy straw and red grams straw only had
burnt. He has deposed nothing against respondent/accused. Rajendra Bohre, P.W-
6 has also not stated anything against respondent/accused.
13. Thus, as far as evidence of independent witnesses is concerned, they
have not supported prosecution story that it was accused who had ablazed the
paddy straw chaff and other crops kept in the stackyard of Umashankar
Piproniya.
14. Umashankar Pioproniya has deposed that his and Rajesh fields are
adjoining. His stackyard is in front of his home. Red gram straw, paddy straw and
chaff were kept in his stackyard. On the day of incident, Rajesh was abusing him
since evening. At around 8:30pm Rajesh set his crop on fire causing loss of
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approximately Rs.50,000/- to him. The evidence of Umashankar P.W-1 does not
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Umashankar has stated that he had told police that he has seen accused setting his
crop on fire but the aforesaid evidence of Umashankar P.W-1 is against the
contents of exhibit-P/1 recorded on the basis of narration given by him. In Ex-P/1,
it is mentioned that after hearing the alarm raised by Rajesh Choudhary, when he
reached in his stackyard he saw that Rajesh had set his paddy straw on fire.
According to this witness Guddu, Lakhan and Kalu Bohre too had seen Rajesh
fleeing from the spot but this evidence of Umashankar P.W-1 does not find
support from evidence of Guddu P.W-2, Lakhan P.W-5 and Rajendra Bohre P.W-
6. Thus, the evidence of Umashankar, P.W-1 that he had seen Rajesh setting his
crop on fire does not inspire confidence as this witness had reached on the spot
after hearing the alarm raised by the Rajesh Choudhary. It appears unnatural that
any person who is having animosity with someone after setting his crop on fire will
raise alarm.
15. In last two lines of para 4 of his cross-examination, Umashankar has
clearly stated that he had reached in his stackyard after hearing the shouts of
Rajesh. He further stated that he had found match and matchstick on spot and had
seen accused fleeing from the spot. Even if for the sake of argument this statement
of Umashankar Piproniya P.W-1 is assumed as correct even then it is apparent that
he had not seen accused Rajesh setting his crop on fire as he had reached on the
spot after fire incident. Therefore, his evidence does not appear worth reliance.
16. Learned trial Court in para 24 of judgment has recorded findings that
Umashankar has not produced any revenue record showing that the place in which
fire incident had taken place, belongs to him. Learned trial Court believing on the
evidence of Bhuwanlal Choudhary, P.W-4 has arrived to the conclusion that the
land on which fire accident took place, does not belong to Umashankar Piproniya.
At the same time, learned trial Court has recorded the finding that Umashankar
himself has encroached some part of the accused's land adjoining to his field and
therefore, possibility of false implications of the respondent/accused with a view to
pressurize him cannot be ruled out. Learned trial Court has minutely scrutinized the
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evidence of all prosecution witnesses and has arrived at a conclusion that
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prosecution has not been successful to prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt.
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17. The findings recorded by learned trial Court appears just and proper. It
is tried to state that in a case of direct evidence, the prosecution must prove its
case beyond the shadow of doubt. However, the present case is full of doubts and
discrepancies. The evidence of Umashankar Piproniya P.W-1 did not find
corroboration with the evidence of other witnesses. His evidence is not of sterling
quality. From the evidence of prosecution witnesses it has come on force that he
himself has encroached some part of the field belonging to respondent/accused. In
such circumstances, the inference drawn by the learned trial Court the possibility
of false implication of respondent/accused cannot be ruled out. Thus, the findings
returned by learned trial Court appears just, correct and plausible.
18. In light of aforesaid analysis, it can be said that prosecution has failed to
discharge the burden of proof imposed upon it. Since the learned trial Court has
taken a plausible view after critically analyzing the evidence, this Court is of the
opinion that impugned acquittal order does not suffer from any illegality or
perversity, therefore, this Court does not find any merit in the appeal preferred by
victim Umashankar Piproniya. Hence, appeal is hereby dismissed.
19. Trial Court record alongwith a copy of the order be sent down
immediately.
(DINESH KUMAR PALIWAL)
JUDGE
anu
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